Speeches: Literary and Social ............................................................................................................................1

[At a public dinner, given in honour of Mr. Dickens, and presided over by the late Professor Wilson, the

Chairman having proposed his health in a long and eloquent speech, Mr. Dickens returned thanks as

IF I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened

as you have listened to the glowing language of your distinguished Chairman, and if I could have heard as

you heard the "thoughts that breathe and words that burn," which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but

I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell

from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent

expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips,

yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting possessing, heaven knows, the will, and desiring

The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasing a path strewn with

flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and

highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express

an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they

had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never

It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may,

without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and

humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was

not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the

Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was

anxious to show that virtue may be found in the byeways of the world, that it is not incompatible with

poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of

And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have

stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this to me memorable night?

I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am

happy to know you were interested, and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you

were disappointed I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that

simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view.

Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be

if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured

horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with

better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford

pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved something

which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that

towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God

bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an

adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to

reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and

some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But, notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose,

and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their

If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your

kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to

thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I

never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while

I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this

capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills,

and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if in the future works which may lie before me

you should discern God grant you may! a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to

this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy

of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far easier emptied, I

[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of Professor Wilson, Mr. Dickens said:]

I HAVE the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you, I

know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is

as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman,

and coupled with his name I have to propose the literature of Scotland a literature which he has done much

to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years as I hope and believe he will

be for many more a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land

of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the

picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch Christopher North. I am glad to

remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any

day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye but that is no fiction and the greyest hair in

all the world who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration

of his fellowmen, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his

mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy

tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had

so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House,

I was disposed to take it as a personal offence I was vexed to see him look so hearty. I drooped to see

twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all light and no shadows, and I began to

doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh

LESS fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me, it is confided to me to mention a name which

cannot be pronounced without sorrow, a name in which Scotland had a great triumph, and which England

delighted to honour. One of the gifted of the earth has passed away, as it were, yesterday; one who was

devoted to his art, and his art was nature I mean David Wilkie. He was one who made the cottage hearth a

graceful thing of whom it might truly be said that he found "books in the running brooks," and who has left

in all he did some breathing of the air which stirs the heather. But however desirous to enlarge on his genius

as an artist, I would rather speak of him now as a friend who has gone from amongst us. There is his deserted

studio the empty easel lying idly by the unfinished picture with its face turned to the wall, and there is

that bereaved sister, who loved him with an affection which death cannot quench. He has left a name in fame

clear as the bright sky; he has filled our minds with memories pure as the blue waves which roll over him. Let

us hope that she who more than all others mourns his loss, may learn to reflect that he died in the fulness of

his time, before age or sickness had dimmed his powers and that she may yet associate with feelings as

[In presenting Captain Hewett, of the BRITANNIA, with a service of plate on behalf of the passengers, Mr.

CAPTAIN HEWETT, I am very proud and happy to have been selected as the instrument of conveying to

you the heartfelt thanks of my fellowpassengers on board the ship entrusted to your charge, and of

entreating your acceptance of this trifling present. The ingenious artists who work in silver do not always, I

find, keep their promises, even in Boston. I regret that, instead of two goblets, which there should be here,

there is, at present, only one. The deficiency, however, will soon be supplied; and, when it is, our little

You are a sailor, Captain Hewett, in the truest sense of the word; and the devoted admiration of the ladies,

God bless them, is a sailor's first boast. I need not enlarge upon the honour they have done you, I am sure, by

their presence here. Judging of you by myself, I am certain that the recollection of their beautiful faces will

In all time to come, and in all your voyages upon the sea, I hope you will have a thought for those who wish

to live in your memory by the help of these trifles. As they will often connect you with the pleasure of those

homes and fire sides from which they once wandered, and which, but for you, they might never have

regained, so they trust that you will sometimes associate them with your hours of festive enjoyment; and,

that, when you drink from these cups, you will feel that the draught is commended to your lips by friends

whose best wishes you have; and who earnestly and truly hope for your success, happiness, and prosperity, in

[At dinner given to Mr. Dickens by the young men of Boston. The company consisted of about two hundred,

among whom were George Bancroft, Washington Allston, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. The toast of "Health,

happiness, and a hearty welcome to Charles Dickens," having been proposed by the chairman, Mr. Quincy,

and received with great applause, Mr. Dickens responded with the following address:]

GENTLEMEN, If you had given this splendid entertainment to anyone else in the whole wide world if I

were tonight to exult in the triumph of my dearest friend if I stood here upon my defence, to repel any

unjust attack to appeal as a stranger to your generosity and kindness as the freest people on the earth I

could, putting some restraint upon myself, stand among you as self possessed and unmoved as I should be

alone in my own room in England. But when I have the echoes of your cordial greeting ringing in my ears;

when I see your kind faces beaming a welcome so warm and earnest as never man had I feel, it is my

nature, so vanquished and subdued, that I have hardly fortitude enough to thank you. If your President,

instead of pouring forth that delightful mixture of humour and pathos which you have just heard, had been

but a caustic, illnatured man if he had only been a dull one if I could only have doubted or distrusted

him or you, I should have had my wits at my fingers' ends, and, using them, could have held you at

arm'slength. But you have given me no such opportunity; you take advantage of me in the tenderest point;

you give me no chance of playing at company, or holding you at a distance, but flock about me like a host of

brothers, and make this place like home. Indeed, gentlemen, indeed, if it be natural and allowable for each of

us, on his own hearth, to express his thoughts in the most homely fashion, and to appear in his plainest garb, I

have a fair claim upon you to let me do so tonight, for you have made my home an Aladdin's Palace. You

fold so tenderly within your breasts that common household lamp in which my feeble fire is all enshrined,

and at which my flickering torch is lighted up, that straight my household gods take wing, and are transported

there. And whereas it is written of that fairy structure that it never moved without two shocks one when it

rose, and one when it settled down I can say of mine that, however sharp a tug it took to pluck it from its

native ground, it struck at once an easy, and a deep and lasting root into this soil; and loved it as its own. I

can say more of it, and say with truth, that long before it moved, or had a chance of moving, its master

perhaps from some secret sympathy between its timbers, and a certain stately tree that has its being

hereabout, and spreads its broad branches far and wide dreamed by day and night, for years, of setting foot

upon this shore, and breathing this pure air. And, trust me, gentlemen, that, if I had wandered here,

unknowing and unknown, I would if I know my own heart have come with all my sympathies clustering

as richly about this land and people with all my sense of justice as keenly alive to their high claims on

every man who loves God's image with all my energies as fully bent on judging for myself, and speaking

out, and telling in my sphere the truth, as I do now, when you rain down your welcomes on my head.

Our President has alluded to those writings which have been my occupation for some years past; and you

have received his allusions in a manner which assures me if I needed any such assurance that we are old

It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I daresay that few persons have been more interested in

mine than I, and if it be a general principle in nature that a lover's love is blind, and that a mother's love is

blind, I believe it may be said of an author's attachment to the creatures of his own imagination, that it is a

perfect model of constancy and devotion, and is the blindest of all. But the objects and purposes I have had in

view are very plain and simple, and may be easily told. I have always had, and always shall have, an earnest

and true desire to contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful cheerfulness and

enjoyment. I have always had, and always shall have, an invincible repugnance to that moleeyed philosophy

which loves the darkness, and winks and scowls in the light. I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags

and patches, as she does in purple and fine linen. I believe that she and every beautiful object in external

nature, claims some sympathy in the breast of the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf of daily bread. I

believe that she goes barefoot as well as shod. I believe that she dwells rather oftener in alleys and byways

than she does in courts and palaces, and that it is good, and pleasant, and profitable to track her out, and

follow her. I believe that to lay one's hand upon some of those rejected ones whom the world has too long

forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudest and most thoughtless "These creatures have the

same elements and capacities of goodness as yourselves, they are moulded in the same form, and made of the

same clay; and though ten times worse than you, may, in having retained anything of their original nature

amidst the trials and distresses of their condition, be really ten times better;" I believe that to do this is to

pursue a worthy and not useless vocation. Gentlemen, that you think so too, your fervent greeting sufficiently

assures me. That this feeling is alive in the Old World as well as in the New, no man should know better than

I I, who have found such wide and ready sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing it, we are but

treading in the steps of those great masterspirits who have gone before, we know by reference to all the

There is one other point connected with the labours (if I may call them so) that you hold in such generous

esteem, to which I cannot help adverting. I cannot help expressing the delight, the more than happiness it was

to me to find so strong an interest awakened on this side of the water, in favour of that little heroine of mine,

to whom your president has made allusion, who died in her youth. I had letters about that child, in England,

from the dwellers in loghouses among the morasses, and swamps, and densest forests, and deep solitudes of

the far west. Many a sturdy hand, hard with the axe and spade, and browned by the summer's sun, has taken

up the pen, and written to me a little history of domestic joy or sorrow, always coupled, I am proud to say,

with something of interest in that little tale, or some comfort or happiness derived from it, and my

correspondent has always addressed me, not as a writer of books for sale, resident some four or five thousand

miles away, but as a friend to whom he might freely impart the joys and sorrows of his own fireside. Many a

mother I could reckon them now by dozens, not by units has done the like, and has told me how she lost

such a child at such a time, and where she lay buried, and how good she was, and how, in this or that respect,

she resembles Nell. I do assure you that no circumstance of my life has given me one hundredth part of the

gratification I have derived from this source. I was wavering at the time whether or not to wind up my Clock,

and come and see this country, and this decided me. I felt as if it were a positive duty, as if I were bound to

pack up my clothes, and come and see my friends; and even now I have such an odd sensation in connexion

with these things, that you have no chance of spoiling me. I feel as though we were agreeing as indeed we

are, if we substitute for fictitious characters the classes from which they are drawn about third parties, in

whom we had a common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, I say to myself "That's for

Oliver; I should not wonder if that was meant for Smike; I have no doubt that is intended for Nell;" and so I

become a much happier, certainly, but a more sober and retiring man than ever I was before.

Gentlemen, talking of my friends in America, brings me back, naturally and of course, to you. Coming back

to you, and being thereby reminded of the pleasure we have in store in hearing the gentlemen who sit about

me, I arrive by the easiest, though not by the shortest course in the world, at the end of what I have to say.

But before I sit down, there is one topic on which I am desirous to lay particular stress. It has, or should have,

a strong interest for us all, since to its literature every country must look for one great means of refining and

improving its people, and one great source of national pride and honour. You have in America great writers

great writers who will live in all time, and are as familiar to our lips as household words. Deriving (as they

all do in a greater or less degree, in their several walks) their inspiration from the stupendous country that

gave them birth, they diffuse a better knowledge of it, and a higher love for it, all over the civilized world. I

take leave to say, in the presence of some of those gentleman, that I hope the time is not far distant when

they, in America, will receive of right some substantial profit and return in England from their labours; and

when we, in England, shall receive some substantial profit and return in America for ours. Pray do not

misunderstand me. Securing to myself from day to day the means of an honourable subsistence, I would

rather have the affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I would have heaps and mines of gold. But the two

things do not seem to me incompatible. They cannot be, for nothing good is incompatible with justice; there

must be an international arrangement in this respect: England has done her part, and I am confident that the

time is not far distant when America will do hers. It becomes the character of a great country; FIRSTLY,

because it is justice; SECONDLY, because without it you never can have, and keep, a literature of your own.

Gentlemen, I thank you with feelings of gratitude, such as are not often awakened, and can never be

expressed. As I understand it to be the pleasant custom here to finish with a toast, I would beg to give you:

AMERICA AND ENGLAND, and may they never have any division but the Atlantic between them.

GENTLEMEN, To say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which you have drunk the toast just now

so eloquently proposed to you to say that I give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more

than compound interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless the best acknowledgments would be beside

such genial hospitality as yours, is nothing. To say that in this winter season, flowers have sprung up in every

footstep's length of the path which has brought me here; that no country ever smiled more pleasantly than

yours has smiled on me, and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which lies

But it is something to be no stranger in a strange place to feel, sitting at a board for the first time, the ease

and affection of an old guest, and to be at once on such intimate terms with the family as to have a homely,

genuine interest in its every member it is, I say, something to be in this novel and happy frame of mind.

And, as it is of your creation, and owes its being to you, I have no reluctance in urging it as a reason why, in

addressing you, I should not so much consult the form and fashion of my speech, as I should employ that

universal language of the heart, which you, and such as you, best teach, and best can understand. Gentlemen,

in that universal language common to you in America, and to us in England, as that younger

mothertongue, which, by the means of, and through the happy union of our two great countries, shall be

spoken ages hence, by land and sea, over the wide surface of the globe I thank you.

I had occasion to say the other night in Boston, as I have more than once had occasion to remark before, that

it is not easy for an author to speak of his own books. If the task be a difficult one at any time, its difficulty,

certainly, is not diminished when a frequent recurrence to the same theme has left one nothing new to say.

Still, I feel that, in a company like this, and especially after what has been said by the President, that I ought

not to pass lightly over those labours of love, which, if they had no other merit, have been the happy means of

It has been often observed, that you cannot judge of an author's personal character from his writings. It may

be that you cannot. I think it very likely, for many reasons, that you cannot. But, at least, a reader will rise

from the perusal of a book with some defined and tangible idea of the writer's moral creed and broad

purposes, if he has any at all; and it is probable enough that he may like to have this idea confirmed from the

author's lips, or dissipated by his explanation. Gentlemen, my moral creed which is a very wide and

comprehensive one, and includes all sects and parties is very easily summed up. I have faith, and I wish to

diffuse faith in the existence yes, of beautiful things, even in those conditions of society, which are so

degenerate, degraded, and forlorn, that, at first sight, it would seem as though they could not be described but

by a strange and terrible reversal of the words of Scripture, "God said, Let there be light, and there was

none." I take it that we are born, and that we hold our sympathies, hopes, and energies, in trust for the many,

and not for the few. That we cannot hold in too strong a light of disgust and contempt, before the view of

others, all meanness, falsehood, cruelty, and oppression, of every grade and kind. Above all, that nothing is

high, because it is in a high place; and that nothing is low, because it is in a low one. This is the lesson taught

us in the great book of nature. This is the lesson which may be read, alike in the bright track of the stars, and

in the dusty course of the poorest thing that drags its tiny length upon the ground. This is the lesson ever

"Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

Gentlemen, keeping these objects steadily before me, I am at no loss to refer your favour and your generous

hospitality back to the right source. While I know, on the one hand, that if, instead of being what it is, this

were a land of tyranny and wrong, I should care very little for your smiles or frowns, so I am sure upon the

other, that if, instead of being what I am, I were the greatest genius that ever trod the earth, and had diverted

myself for the oppression and degradation of mankind, you would despise and reject me. I hope you will,

whenever, through such means, I give you the opportunity. Trust me, that, whenever you give me the like

Gentlemen, as I have no secrets from you, in the spirit of confidence you have engendered between us, and as

I have made a kind of compact with myself that I never will, while I remain in America, omit an opportunity

of referring to a topic in which I and all others of my class on both sides of the water are equally interested

equally interested, there is no difference between us, I would beg leave to whisper in your ear two words:

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. I use them in no sordid sense, believe me, and those who know me best,

best know that. For myself, I would rather that my children, coming after me, trudged in the mud, and knew

by the general feeling of society that their father was beloved, and had been of some use, than I would have

them ride in their carriages, and know by their banker's books that he was rich. But I do not see, I confess,

why one should be obliged to make the choice, or why fame, besides playing that delightful REVEIL for

which she is so justly celebrated, should not blow out of her trumpet a few notes of a different kind from

It was well observed the other night by a beautiful speaker, whose words went to the heart of every man who

heard him, that, if there had existed any law in this respect, Scott might not have sunk beneath the mighty

pressure on his brain, but might have lived to add new creatures of his fancy to the crowd which swarm about

As I listened to his words, there came back, fresh upon me, that touching scene in the great man's life, when

he lay upon his couch, surrounded by his family, and listened, for the last time, to the rippling of the river he

had so well loved, over its stony bed. I pictured him to myself, faint, wan, dying, crushed both in mind and

body by his honourable struggle, and hovering round him the phantoms of his own imagination Waverley,

Ravenswood, Jeanie Deans, Rob Roy, Caleb Balderstone, Dominie Sampson all the familiar throng with

cavaliers, and Puritans, and Highland chiefs innumerable overflowing the chamber, and fading away in the

dim distance beyond. I pictured them, fresh from traversing the world, and hanging down their heads in

shame and sorrow, that, from all those lands into which they had carried gladness, instruction, and delight for

millions, they brought him not one friendly hand to help to raise him from that sad, sad bed. No, nor brought

him from that land in which his own language was spoken, and in every house and hut of which his own

books were read in his own tongue, one grateful dollarpiece to buy a garland for his grave. Oh! if every man

who goes from here, as many do, to look upon that tomb in Dryburgh Abbey, would but remember this, and

Gentlemen, I thank you again, and once again, and many times to that. You have given me a new reason for

remembering this day, which is already one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have given

those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollecting it with pride and interest. Heaven

knows that, although I should grow ever so gray, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in my life.

But I am glad to think that from this time you are inseparably connected with every recurrence of this day;

and, that on its periodical return, I shall always, in imagination, have the unfading pleasure of entertaining

you as my guests, in return for the gratification you have afforded me to night.

[At a dinner presided over by Washington Irving, when nearly eight hundred of the most distinguished

citizens of New York were present, "Charles Dickens, the Literary Guest of the Nation," having been

"proferred as a sentiment" by the Chairman, Mr. Dickens rose, and spoke as follows:]

GENTLEMEN, I don't know how to thank you I really don't know how. You would naturally suppose

that my former experience would have given me this power, and that the difficulties in my way would have

been diminished; but I assure you the fact is exactly the reverse, and I have completely baulked the ancient

proverb that "a rolling stone gathers no moss;" and in my progress to this city I have collected such a weight

of obligations and acknowledgment I have picked up such an enormous mass of fresh moss at every point,

and was so struck by the brilliant scenes of Monday night, that I thought I could never by any possibility

grow any bigger. I have made, continually, new accumulations to such an extent that I am compelled to stand

Gentlemen, we learn from the authorities, that, when fairy stories, or balls, or rolls of thread, stopped of their

own accord as I do not it presaged some great catastrophe near at hand. The precedent holds good in this

case. When I have remembered the short time I have before me to spend in this land of mighty interests, and

the poor opportunity I can at best have of acquiring a knowledge of, and forming an acquaintance with it, I

have felt it almost a duty to decline the honours you so generously heap upon me, and pass more quietly

among you. For Argus himself, though he had but one mouth for his hundred eyes, would have found the

reception of a public entertainment once aweek too much for his greatest activity; and, as I would lose no

scrap of the rich instruction and the delightful knowledge which meet me on every hand, (and already I have

gleaned a great deal from your hospitals and common jails), I have resolved to take up my staff, and go my

way rejoicing, and for the future to shake hands with America, not at parties but at home; and, therefore,

gentlemen, I say tonight, with a full heart, and an honest purpose, and grateful feelings, that I bear, and shall

ever bear, a deep sense of your kind, your affectionate and your noble greeting, which it is utterly impossible

to convey in words. No European sky without, and no cheerful home or wellwarmed room within shall ever

shut out this land from my vision. I shall often hear your words of welcome in my quiet room, and oftenest

when most quiet; and shall see your faces in the blazing fire. If I should live to grow old, the scenes of this

and other evenings will shine as brightly to my dull eyes fifty years hence as now; and the honours you

bestow upon me shall be well remembered and paid back in my undying love, and honest endeavours for the

Gentlemen, one other word with reference to this first person singular, and then I shall close. I came here in

an open, honest, and confiding spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt a deep sympathy in your land; had I

felt otherwise, I should have kept away. As I came here, and am here, without the least admixture of

onehundredth part of one grain of base alloy, without one feeling of unworthy reference to self in any

respect, I claim, in regard to the past, for the last time, my right in reason, in truth, and in justice, to approach,

as I have done on two former occasions, a question of literary interest. I claim that justice be done; and I

prefer this claim as one who has a right to speak and be heard. I have only to add that I shall be as true to you

as you have been to me. I recognize in your enthusiastic approval of the creatures of my fancy, your

enlightened care for the happiness of the many, your tender regard for the afflicted, your sympathy for the

downcast, your plans for correcting and improving the bad, and for encouraging the good; and to advance

these great objects shall be, to the end of my life, my earnest endeavour, to the extent of my humble ability.

Having said thus much with reference to myself, I shall have the pleasure of saying a few words with

There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of my books I well remember it was the Old

Curiosity Shop wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I had

written the book under every circumstance of disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of

the reverse, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. I answered him,

and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled between us. I came

here to this city eager to see him, and [LAYING HIS HAND IT UPON IRVING'S SHOULDER] here he sits!

I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to see him here tonight in this capacity.

Washington Irving! Why, gentlemen, I don't go upstairs to bed two nights out of the seven as a very

creditable witness near at hand can testify I say I do not go to bed two nights out of the seven without

taking Washington Irving under my arm; and, when I don't take him, I take his own brother, Oliver

Goldsmith. Washington Irving! Why, of whom but him was I thinking the other day when I came up by the

Hog's Back, the Frying Pan, Hell Gate, and all these places? Why, when, not long ago, I visited Shakespeare's

birthplace, and went beneath the roof where he first saw light, whose name but HIS was pointed out to me

upon the wall? Washington Irving Diedrich Knickerbocker Geoffrey Crayon why, where can you go

that they have not been there before? Is there an English farm is there an English stream, an English city, or

an English countryseat, where they have not been? Is there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? Has it no

In bygone times, when Irving left that Hall, he left sitting in an old oak chair, in a small parlour of the Boar's

Head, a little man with a red nose, and an oilskin hat. When I came away he was sitting there still! not a

man LIKE him, but the same man with the nose of immortal redness and the hat of an undying glaze!

Crayon, while there, was on terms of intimacy with a certain radical fellow, who used to go about, with a

hatful of newspapers, wofully out at elbows, and with a coat of great antiquity. Why, gentlemen, I know that

man Tibbles the elder, and he has not changed a hair; and, when I came away, he charged me to give his

Leaving the town and the rustic life of England forgetting this man, if we can putting out of mind the

country churchyard and the broken heart let us cross the water again, and ask who has associated himself

most closely with the Italian peasantry and the bandits of the Pyrenees? When the traveller enters his little

chamber beyond the Alps listening to the dim echoes of the long passages and spacious corridors damp,

and gloomy, and cold as he hears the tempest beating with fury against his window, and gazes at the

curtains, dark, and heavy, and covered with mould and when all the ghoststories that ever were told come

up before him amid all his thickcoming fancies, whom does he think of? Washington Irving.

Go farther still: go to the Moorish Mountains, sparkling full in the moonlight go among the watercarriers

and the village gossips, living still as in days of old and who has travelled among them before you, and

peopled the Alhambra and made eloquent its shadows? Who awakes there a voice from every hill and in

every cavern, and bids legends, which for centuries have slept a dreamless sleep, or watched unwinkingly,

But leaving this again, who embarked with Columbus upon his gallant ship, traversed with him the dark and

mighty ocean, leaped upon the land and planted there the flag of Spain, but this same man, now sitting by my

side? And being here at home again, who is a more fit companion for moneydiggers? and what pen but his

has made Rip Van Winkle, playing at ninepins on that thundering afternoon, as much part and parcel of the

But these are topics familiar from my boyhood, and which I am apt to pursue; and lest I should be tempted

now to talk too long about them, I will, in conclusion, give you a sentiment, most appropriate, I am sure, in

the presence of such writers as Bryant, Halleck, and but I suppose I must not mention the ladies here

She well knows how to do honour to her own literature and to that of other lands, when she chooses

[This address was delivered at a soiree of the members of the Manchester, Athenaeum, at which Mr. Dickens

presided. Among the other speakers on the occasion were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Disraeli.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I am sure I need scarcely tell you that I am very proud and happy; and that I

take it as a great distinction to be asked to come amongst you on an occasion such as this, when, even with

the brilliant and beautiful spectacle which I see before me, I can hail it as the most brilliant and beautiful

circumstance of all, that we assemble together here, even here, upon neutral ground, where we have no more

knowledge of party difficulties, or public animosities between side and side, or between man and man, than if

Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds, this assembly is not less interesting to

me, believe me although, personally, almost a stranger here than it is interesting to you; and I take it, that

it is not of greater importance to all of us than it is to every man who has learned to know that he has an

interest in the moral and social elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, happiness, and improvement, of

the community at large. Not even those who saw the first foundation of your Athenaeum laid, and watched its

progress, as I know they did, almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature, until it reared its

beautiful front, an honour to the town not even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its

usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to

hope that it may thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who whether consciously or

unconsciously, matters not have, in the principle of its success and bright example, a deep and personal

It well becomes, particularly well becomes, this enterprising town, this little world of labour, that she should

stand out foremost in the foremost rank in such a cause. It well becomes her, that, among her numerous and

noble public institutions, she should have a splendid temple sacred to the education and improvement of a

large class of those who, in their various useful stations, assist in the production of our wealth, and in

rendering her name famous through the world. I think it is grand to know, that, while her factories reecho

with the clanking of stupendous engines, and the whirl and rattle of machinery, the immortal mechanism of

God's own hand, the mind, is not forgotten in the din and uproar, but is lodged and tended in a palace of its

own. That it is a structure deeply fixed and rooted in the public spirit of this place, and built to last, I have no

more doubt, judging from the spectacle I see before me, and from what I know of its brief history, than I have

of the reality of these walls that hem us in, and the pillars that spring up about us.

You are perfectly well aware, I have no doubt, that the Athenaeum was projected at a time when commerce

was in a vigorous and flourishing condition, and when those classes of society to which it particularly

addresses itself were fully employed, and in the receipt of regular incomes. A season of depression almost

without a parallel ensued, and large numbers of young men employed in warehouses and offices suddenly

found their occupation gone, and themselves reduced to very straitened and penurious circumstances. This

altered state of things led, as I am told, to the compulsory withdrawal of many of the members, to a

proportionate decrease in the expected funds, and to the incurrence of a debt of 3,000 pounds. By the very

great zeal and energy of all concerned, and by the liberality of those to whom they applied for help, that debt

is now in rapid course of being discharged. A little more of the same indefatigable exertion on the one hand,

and a little more of the same community of feeling upon the other, and there will be no such thing; the figures

will be blotted out for good and all, and, from that time, the Athenaeum may be said to belong to you, and to

But, ladies and gentlemen, at all times, now in its most thriving, and in its least flourishing condition here,

with its cheerful rooms, its pleasant and instructive lectures, its improving library of 6,000 volumes, its

classes for the study of the foreign languages, elocution, music; its opportunities of discussion and debate, of

healthful bodily exercise, and, though last not least for by this I set great store, as a very novel and excellent

provision its opportunities of blameless, rational enjoyment, here it is, open to every youth and man in this

great town, accessible to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all these benefits, and the inestimable ends to

which they lead, can set aside one sixpence weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the subscription, and

upon the fact that the number of members has considerably more than doubled within the last twelve months,

as strides in the path of the very best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the history of mankind.

I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves

very much to rake up the ashes of the deadandgone objections that were wont to be urged by men of all

parties against institutions such as this, whose interests we are met to promote; but their philosophy was

always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short sentence. How often have we heard from

a large class of men wise in their generation, who would really seem to be born and bred for no other purpose

than to pass into currency counterfeit and mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some

other criminals to utter base coin how often have we heard from them, as an allconvincing argument, that

"a little learning is a dangerous thing?" Why, a little hanging was considered a very dangerous thing,

according to the same authorities, with this difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous, we had a

great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, we were to have none at all. Why, when I hear

such cruel absurdities gravely reiterated, I do sometimes begin to doubt whether the parrots of society are not

more pernicious to its interests than its birds of prey. I should be glad to hear such people's estimate of the

comparative danger of "a little learning" and a vast amount of ignorance; I should be glad to know which they

consider the most prolific parent of misery and crime. Descending a little lower in the social scale, I should

be glad to assist them in their calculations, by carrying them into certain gaols and nightly refuges I know of,

where my own heart dies within me, when I see thousands of immortal creatures condemned, without

alternative or choice, to tread, not what our great poet calls the "primrose path" to the everlasting bonfire, but

one of jaded flints and stones, laid down by brutal ignorance, and held together, like the solid rocks, by years

Would we know from any honourable body of merchants, upright in deed and thought, whether they would

rather have ignorant or enlightened persons in their own employment? Why, we have had their answer in this

building; we have it in this company; we have it emphatically given in the munificent generosity of your own

merchants of Manchester, of all sects and kinds, when this establishment was first proposed. But are the

advantages derivable by the people from institutions such as this, only of a negative character? If a little

learning be an innocent thing, has it no distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon the mind? The old

And this I know, that the first unpurchasable blessing earned by every man who makes an effort to improve

himself in such a place as the Athenaeum, is selfrespect an inward dignity of character, which, once

acquired and righteously maintained, nothing no, not the hardest drudgery, nor the direst poverty can

vanquish. Though he should find it hard for a season even to keep the wolf hunger from his door, let him

but once have chased the dragon ignorance from his hearth, and selfrespect and hope are left him. You

could no more deprive him of those sustaining qualities by loss or destruction of his worldly goods, than you

could, by plucking out his eyes, take from him an internal consciousness of the bright glory of the sun.

The man who lives from day to day by the daily exercise in his sphere of hands or head, and seeks to improve

himself in such a place as the Athenaeum, acquires for himself that property of soul which has in all times

upheld struggling men of every degree, but selfmade men especially and always. He secures to himself that

faithful companion which, while it has ever lent the light of its countenance to men of rank and eminence

who have deserved it, has ever shed its brightest consolations on men of low estate and almost hopeless

means. It took its patient seat beside Sir Walter Raleigh in his dungeonstudy in the Tower; it laid its head

upon the block with More; but it did not disdain to watch the stars with Ferguson, the shepherd's boy; it

walked the streets in mean attire with Crabbe; it was a poor barber here in Lancashire with Arkwright; it was

a tallowchandler's son with Franklin; it worked at shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret; it followed the

plough with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, it whispers courage even at this day in

The more the man who improves his leisure in such a place learns, the better, gentler, kinder man he must

become. When he knows how much great minds have suffered for the truth in every age and time, and to

what dismal persecutions opinion has been exposed, he will become more tolerant of other men's belief in all

matters, and will incline more leniently to their sentiments when they chance to differ from his own.

Understanding that the relations between himself and his employers involve a mutual duty and responsibility,

he will discharge his part of the implied contract cheerfully, satisfactorily, and honourably; for the history of

The benefits he acquires in such a place are not of a selfish kind, but extend themselves to his home, and to

those whom it contains. Something of what he hears or reads within such walls can scarcely fail to become at

times a topic of discourse by his own fireside, nor can it ever fail to lead to larger sympathies with man, and

to a higher veneration for the great Creator of all the wonders of this universe. It appears to his home and his

homely feeling in other ways; for at certain times he carries there his wife and daughter, or his sister, or,

possibly, some brighteyed acquaintance of a more tender description. Judging from what I see before me, I

think it is very likely; I am sure I would if I could. He takes her there to enjoy a pleasant evening, to be gay

and happy. Sometimes it may possibly happen that he dates his tenderness from the Athenaeum. I think that

is a very excellent thing, too, and not the least among the advantages of the institution. In any case, I am sure

the number of bright eyes and beaming faces which grace this meeting tonight by their presence, will never

Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not easily forget this scene, the pleasing task your favour has devolved upon

me, or the strong and inspiring confirmation I have tonight, of all the hopes and reliances I have ever placed

upon institutions of this nature. In the latter point of view in their bearing upon this latter point I regard

them as of great importance, deeming that the more intelligent and reflective society in the mass becomes,

and the more readers there are, the more distinctly writers of all kinds will be able to throw themselves upon

the truthful feeling of the people and the more honoured and the more useful literature must be. At the same

time, I must confess that, if there had been an Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago,

some leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which was very cheaply bought, very dearly

sold, and very marketably haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity might probably have

lacked the information that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and

wider scale, let me say it once again it is in the effect of such institutions upon the great social system, and

the peace and happiness of mankind, that I delight to contemplate them; and, in my heart, I am quite certain

that long after your institution, and others of the same nature, have crumbled into dust, the noble harvest of

the seed sown in them will shine out brightly in the wisdom, the mercy, and the forbearance of another race.

[The following address was delivered at a soiree of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution, at which Mr.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It was rather hard of you to take away my breath before I spoke a word; but

I would not thank you, even if I could, for the favour which has set me in this place, or for the generous

kindness which has greeted me so warmly, because my first strong impulse still would be, although I had

that power, to lose sight of all personal considerations in the high intent and meaning of this numerous

assemblage, in the contemplation of the noble objects to which this building is devoted, of its brilliant and

inspiring history, of that rough, upward track, so bravely trodden, which it leaves behind, and that bright path

of steadily increasing usefulness which lies stretched out before it. My first strong impulse still would be to

exchange congratulations with you, as the members of one united family, on the thriving vigour of this

strongest child of a strong race. My first strong impulse still would be, though everybody here had twice as

many hundreds of hands as there are hundreds of persons present, to shake them in the spirit, everyone,

always, allow me to say, excepting those hands (and there are a few such here), which, with the constitutional

When I first had the honour of communicating with your Committee with reference to this celebration, I had

some selfish hopes that the visit proposed to me might turn out to be one of congratulation, or, at least, of

solicitous inquiry; for they who receive a visitor in any season of distress are easily touched and moved by

what he says, and I entertained some confident expectation of making a mighty strong impression on you.

But, when I came to look over the printed documents which were forwarded to me at the same time, and with

which you are all tolerably familiar, these anticipations very speedily vanished, and left me bereft of all

consolation, but the triumphant feeling to which I have referred. For what do I find, on looking over those

brief chronicles of this swift conquest over ignorance and prejudice, in which no blood has been poured out,

and no treaty signed but that one sacred compact which recognises the just right of every man, whatever his

belief, or however humble his degree, to aspire, and to have some means of aspiring, to be a better and a

wiser man? I find that, in 1825, certain misguided and turbulent persons proposed to erect in Liverpool an

unpopular, dangerous, irreligious, and revolutionary establishment, called a Mechanics' Institution; that, in

1835, Liverpool having, somehow or other, got on pretty comfortably in the meantime, in spite of it, the first

stone of a new and spacious edifice was laid; that, in 1837, it was opened; that, it was afterwards, at different

periods, considerably enlarged; that, in 1844, conspicuous amongst the public beauties of a beautiful town,

here it stands triumphant, its enemies lived down, its former students attesting, in their various useful callings

and pursuits, the sound, practical information it afforded them; its members numbering considerably more

than 3,000, and setting in rapidly for 6,000 at least; its library comprehending 11,000 volumes, and daily

sending forth its hundreds of books into private homes; its staff of masters and officers, amounting to

halfahundred in themselves; its schools, conveying every sort of instruction, high and low, adapted to the

labour, means, exigencies, and convenience of nearly every class and grade of persons. I was here this

morning, and in its spacious halls I found stores of the wonders worked by nature in the air, in the forest, in

the cavern, and in the sea stores of the surpassing engines devised by science for the better knowledge of

other worlds, and the greater happiness of this stores of those gentler works of art, which, though achieved

in perishable stone, by yet more perishable hands of dust, are in their influence immortal. With such means at

their command, so welldirected, so cheaply shared, and so extensively diffused, well may your Committee

say, as they have done in one of their Reports, that the success of this establishment has far exceeded their

But, ladies and gentlemen, as that same philosopher whose words they quote, as Bacon tells us, instancing the

wonderful effects of little things and small beginnings, that the influence of the loadstone was first discovered

in particles of iron, and not in iron bars, so they may lay it to their hearts, that when they combined together

to form the institution which has risen to this majestic height, they issued on a field of enterprise, the glorious

end of which they cannot even now discern. Every man who has felt the advantages of, or has received

improvement in this place, carries its benefits into the society in which he moves, and puts them out at

compound interest; and what the blessed sum may be at last, no man can tell. Ladies and gentlemen, with that

Christian prelate whose name appears on your list of honorary Members; that good and liberal man who once

addressed you within these walls, in a spirit worthy of his calling, and of his High Master I look forward

from this place, as from a tower, to the time when high and low, and rich and poor, shall mutually assist,

I feel, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not a place, with its 3,200 members, and at least 3,200 arguments in

every one, to enter on any advocacy of the principle of Mechanics' Institutions, or to discuss the subject with

those who do or ever did object to them. I should as soon think of arguing the point with those untutored

savages whose mode of life you last year had the opportunity of witnessing; indeed, I am strongly inclined to

believe them by far the more rational class of the two. Moreover, if the institution itself be not a sufficient

answer to all such objections, then there is no such thing in fact or reason, human or divine. Neither will I

venture to enter into those details of the management of this place which struck me most on the perusal of its

papers; but I cannot help saying how much impressed and gratified I was, as everybody must be who comes

to their perusal for the first time, by the extraordinary munificence with which this institution has been

Amongst the peculiar features of management which made the greatest impression on me, I may observe that

that regulation which empowers fathers, being annual subscribers of one guinea, to introduce their sons who

are minors; and masters, on payment of the astoundingly small sum of five shillings annually, in like manner

their apprentices, is not the least valuable of its privileges; and, certainly not the one least valuable to society.

And, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot say to you what pleasure I derived from the perusal of an apparently

excellent report in your local papers of a meeting held here some short time since, in aid of the formation of a

girls' school in connexion with this institution. This is a new and striking chapter in the history of these

institutions; it does equal credit to the gallantry and policy of this, and disposes one to say of it with a slight

That those who are our best teachers, and whose lessons are oftenest heeded in after life, should be well

taught themselves, is a proposition few reasonable men will gainsay; and, certainly, to breed up good

husbands on the one hand, and good wives on the other, does appear as reasonable and straightforward a plan

This, and what I see before me, naturally brings me to our fairer members, in respect of whom I have no

doubt you will agree with me, that they ought to be admitted to the widest possible extent, and on the lowest

possible terms; and, ladies, let me venture to say to you, that you never did a wiser thing in all your lives than

when you turned your favourable regard on such an establishment as this for wherever the light of

knowledge is diffused, wherever the humanizing influence of the arts and sciences extends itself, wherever

there is the clearest perception of what is beautiful, and good, and most redeeming, amid all the faults and

vices of mankind, there your character, your virtues, your graces, your better nature, will be the best

appreciated, and there the truest homage will be proudly paid to you. You show best, trust me, in the clearest

light; and every ray that falls upon you at your own firesides, from any book or thought communicated within

I will not longer interpose myself, ladies and gentlemen, between you and the pleasure we all anticipate in

hearing other gentlemen, and in enjoying those social pleasures with which it is a main part of the wisdom of

this society to adorn and relieve its graver pursuits. We all feel, I am sure, being here, that we are truly

interested in the cause of human improvement and rational education, and that we pledge ourselves, everyone

as far as in him lies, to extend the knowledge of the benefits afforded in this place, and to bear honest witness

in its favour. To those who yet remain without its walls, but have the means of purchasing its advantages, we

make appeal, and in a friendly and forbearing spirit say, "Come in, and be convinced

If you, happily, have been well taught yourself, and are superior to its advantages, so much the more should

you make one in sympathy with those who are below you. Beneath this roof we breed the men who, in the

time to come, must be found working for good or evil, in every quarter of society. If mutual respect and

forbearance among various classes be not found here, where so many men are trained up in so many grades,

to enter on so many roads of life, dating their entry from one common startingpoint, as they are all

approaching, by various paths, one common end, where else can that great lesson be imbibed? Differences of

wealth, of rank, of intellect, we know there must be, and we respect them; but we would give to all the means

of taking out one patent of nobility, and we define it, in the words of a great living poet, who is one of us, and

"Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'Tis only noble to be good: True hearts are more than coronets, And simple

[The following speech was delivered at a Conversazione, in aid of the funds of the Birmingham Polytechnic

YOU will think it very unwise, or very selfdenying in me, in such an assembly, in such a splendid scene,

and after such a welcome, to congratulate myself on having nothing new to say to you: but I do so,

notwithstanding. To say nothing of places nearer home, I had the honour of attending at Manchester, shortly

before Christmas, and at Liverpool, only the night before last, for a purpose similar to that which brings you

together this evening; and looking down a short perspective of similar engagements, I feel gratification at the

thought that I shall very soon have nothing at all to say; in which case, I shall be content to stake my

reputation, like the Spectator of Addison, and that other great periodical speaker, the Speaker of the House of

This feeling, and the earnest reception I have met with, are not the only reasons why I feel a genuine, cordial,

and peculiar interest in this night's proceedings. The Polytechnic Institution of Birmingham is in its infancy

struggling into life under all those adverse and disadvantageous circumstances which, to a greater or less

extent, naturally beset all infancy; but I would much rather connect myself with it now, however humble, in

its days of difficulty and of danger, than look back on its origin when it may have become strong, and rich,

and powerful. I should prefer an intimate association with it now, in its early days and apparent struggles, to

becoming its advocate and acquaintance, its fair weather friend, in its high and palmy days. I would rather

be able to say I knew it in its swaddlingclothes, than in maturer age. Its two elder brothers have grown old

and died: their chests were weak about their cradles nurses shook their heads, and gossips groaned; but the

present institution shot up, amidst the ruin of those which have fallen, with an indomitable constitution, with

vigorous and with steady pulse; temperate, wise, and of good repute; and by perseverance it has become a

very giant. Birmingham is, in my mind and in the minds of most men, associated with many giants; and I no

more believe that this young institution will turn out sickly, dwarfish, or of stunted growth, than I do that

when the glassslipper of my chairmanship shall fall off, and the clock strike twelve tonight, this hall will

be turned into a pumpkin. I found that strong belief upon the splendid array of grace and beauty by which I

am surrounded, and which, if it only had one hundredth part of the effect upon others it has upon me, could

do anything it pleased with anything and anybody. I found my strong conviction, in the second place, upon

the public spirit of the town of Birmingham upon the name and fame of its capitalists and working men;

upon the greatness and importance of its merchants and manufacturers; upon its inventions, which are

constantly in progress; upon the skill and intelligence of its artisans, which are daily developed; and the

increasing knowledge of all portions of the community. All these reasons lead me to the conclusion that your

institution will advance that it will and must progress, and that you will not be content with lingering

I have another peculiar ground of satisfaction in connexion with the object of this assembly; and it is, that the

resolutions about to be proposed do not contain in themselves anything of a sectarian or class nature; that

they do not confine themselves to any one single institution, but assert the great and omnipotent principles of

comprehensive education everywhere and under every circumstance. I beg leave to say that I concur, heart

and hand, in those principles, and will do all in my power for their advancement; for I hold, in accordance

with the imperfect knowledge which I possess, that it is impossible for any fabric of society to go on day after

day, and year after year, from father to son, and from grandfather to grandson, punishing men for not

engaging in the pursuit of virtue and for the practice of crime, without showing them what virtue is, and

where it best can be found in justice, religion, and truth. The only reason that can possibly be adduced

against it is one founded on fiction namely, the case where an obdurate old geni, in the "Arabian Nights,"

was bound upon taking the life of a merchant, because he had struck out the eye of his invisible son. I

recollect, likewise, a tale in the same book of charming fancies, which I consider not inappropriate: it is a

case where a powerful spirit has been imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, in a casket with a leaden cover,

and the seal of Solomon upon it; there he had lain neglected for many centuries, and during that period had

made many different vows: at first, that he would reward magnificently those who should release him; and at

last, that he would destroy them. Now, there is a spirit of great power the Spirit of Ignorance which is

shut up in a vessel of leaden composition, and sealed with the seal of many, many Solomons, and which is

effectually in the same position: release it in time, and it will bless, restore, and reanimate society; but let it

lie under the rolling waves of years, and its blind revenge is sure to lead to certain destruction. That there are

classes which, if rightly treated, constitute strength, and if wrongly, weakness, I hold it impossible to deny

by these classes I mean industrious, intelligent, and honourably independent men, in whom the higher classes

of Birmingham are especially interested, and bound to afford them the means of instruction and

improvement, and to ameliorate their mental and moral condition. Far be it from me (and I wish to be most

particularly understood) to attempt to depreciate the excellent Church Instruction Societies, or the worthy,

sincere, and temperate zeal of those reverend gentlemen by whom they are usually conducted; on the

contrary, I believe that they have done, and are doing, much good, and are deserving of high praise; but I

hope that, without offence, in a community such as Birmingham, there are other objects not unworthy in the

sight of heaven, and objects of recognised utility which are worthy of support principles which are

practised in word and deed in Polytechnic Institutions principles for the diffusion of which honest men of

all degrees and of every creed might associate together, on an independent footing and on neutral ground, and

at a small expense, for the better understanding and the greater consideration of each other, and for the better

cultivation of the happiness of all: for it surely cannot be allowed that those who labour day by day,

surrounded by machinery, shall be permitted to degenerate into machines themselves, but, on the contrary,

they should assert their common origin from their Creator, at the hands of those who are responsible and

thinking men. There is, indeed, no difference in the main with respect to the dangers of ignorance and the

advantages of knowledge between those who hold different opinions for it is to be observed, that those who

are most distrustful of the advantages of education, are always the first to exclaim against the results of

ignorance. This fact was pleasantly illustrated on the railway, as I came here. In the same carriage with me

there sat an ancient gentleman (I feel no delicacy in alluding to him, for I know that he is not in the room,

having got out far short of Birmingham), who expressed himself most mournfully as to the ruinous effects

and rapid spread of railways, and was most pathetic upon the virtues of the slowgoing old stage coaches.

Now I, entertaining some little lingering kindness for the road, made shift to express my concurrence with the

old gentleman's opinion, without any great compromise of principle. Well, we got on tolerably comfortably

together, and when the engine, with a frightful screech, dived into some dark abyss, like some strange aquatic

monster, the old gentleman said it would never do, and I agreed with him. When it parted from each

successive station, with a shock and a shriek as if it had had a doubletooth drawn, the old gentleman shook

his head, and I shook mine. When he burst forth against such newfangled notions, and said no good could

come of them, I did not contest the point. But I found that when the speed of the engine was abated, or there

was a prolonged stay at any station, up the old gentleman was at arms, and his watch was instantly out of his

pocket, denouncing the slowness of our progress. Now I could not help comparing this old gentleman to that

ingenious class of persons who are in the constant habit of declaiming against the vices and crimes of society,

and at the same time are the first and foremost to assert that vice and crime have not their common origin in

The good work, however, in spite of all political and party differences, has been well begun; we are all

interested in it; it is advancing, and cannot be stopped by any opposition, although it may be retarded in this

place or in that, by the indifference of the middle classes, with whom its successful progress chiefly rests. Of

this success I cannot entertain a doubt; for whenever the working classes have enjoyed an opportunity of

effectually rebutting accusations which falsehood or thoughtlessness have brought against them, they always

avail themselves of it, and show themselves in their true characters; and it was this which made the damage

done to a single picture in the National Gallery of London, by some poor lunatic or cripple, a mere matter of

newspaper notoriety and wonder for some few days. This, then, establishes a fact evident to the meanest

comprehension that any given number of thousands of individuals, in the humblest walks of life in this

country, can pass through the national galleries or museums in seasons of holidaymaking, without

damaging, in the slightest degree, those choice and valuable collections. I do not myself believe that the

working classes ever were the wanton or mischievous persons they were so often and so long represented to

be; but I rather incline to the opinion that some men take it into their heads to lay it down as a matter of fact,

without being particular about the premises; and that the idle and the prejudiced, not wishing to have the

trouble of forming opinions for themselves, take it for granted until the people have an opportunity of

Now this assertion is well illustrated by what occurred respecting an equestrian statue in the metropolis, with

respect to which a legend existed that the sculptor hanged himself, because he had neglected to put a girth to

the horse. This story was currently believed for many years, until it was inspected for altogether a different

But surely if, as is stated, the people are illdisposed and mischievous, that is the best reason that can be

offered for teaching them better; and if they are not, surely that is a reason for giving them every opportunity

of vindicating their injured reputation; and no better opportunity could possibly be afforded than that of

associating together voluntarily for such high purposes as it is proposed to carry out by the establishment of

the Birmingham Polytechnic Institution. In any case nay, in every case if we would reward honesty, if we

would hold out encouragement to good, if we would eradicate that which is evil or correct that which is bad,

education comprehensive, liberal education is the one thing needful, and the only effective end. If I might

apply to my purpose, and turn into plain prose some words of Hamlet not with reference to any government

or party (for party being, for the most part, an irrational sort of thing, has no connexion with the object we

have in view) if I might apply those words to education as Hamlet applied them to the skull of Yorick, I

would say "Now hie thee to the councilchamber, and tell them, though they lay it on in sounding thoughts

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now quite even for every effect which I may have made upon you, the

compliment has been amply returned to me; but at the same time I am as little disposed to say to you, 'go and

sin no more,' as I am to promise for myself that 'I will never do so again.' So long as I can make you laugh

and cry, I will; and you will readily believe me, when I tell you, you cannot do too much on your parts to

show that we are still cordial and loving friends. To you, ladies of the Institution, I am deeply and especially

indebted. I sometimes [POINTING TO THE WORD 'BOZ' IN FRONT OF THE GREAT GALLERY] think

there is some small quantity of magic in that very short name, and that it must consist in its containing as

many letters as the three graces, and they, every one of them, being of your fair sisterhood.

A story is told of an eastern potentate of modern times, who, for an eastern potentate, was a tolerably good

man, sometimes bowstringing his dependants indiscriminately in his moments of anger, but burying them in

great splendour in his moments of penitence, that whenever intelligence was brought him of a new plot or

turbulent conspiracy, his first inquiry was, 'Who is she?' meaning that a woman was at the bottom. Now, in

my small way, I differ from that potentate; for when there is any good to be attained, the services of any

ministering angel required, my first inquiry is, 'Where is she?' and the answer invariably is, 'Here.' Proud and

[The Ninth Anniversary Dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution was held on the above date at the

London Tavern. The company numbered more than 150. The dessert was worthy of the occasion, and an

admirable effect was produced by a profuse display of natural flowers upon the tables and in the decoration

of the room. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, in proposing the toast of the evening, spoke

FOR three times three years the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution has been stimulated and encouraged by

meetings such as this, and by three times three cheers we will urge it onward in its prosperous career. [THE

Occupying the post I now do, I feel something like a counsel for the plaintiff with nobody on the other side;

but even if I had been placed in that position ninety times nine, it would still be my duty to state a few facts

This Institution was founded in the year 1838. During the first five years of its existence, it was not

particularly robust, and seemed to have been placed in rather a shaded position, receiving somewhat more

than its needful allowance of cold water. In 1843 it was removed into a more favourable position, and grafted

on a nobler stock, and it has now borne fruit, and become such a vigorous tree that at present thirtyfive old

people daily sit within the shelter of its branches, and all the pensioners upon the list have been veritable

gardeners, or the wives of gardeners. It is managed by gardeners, and it has upon its books the excellent rule

that any gardener who has subscribed to it for fifteen years, and conformed to the rules, may, if he will, be

placed upon the pensioners' list without election, without canvass, without solicitation, and as his independent

right. I lay very great stress upon that honourable characteristic of the charity, because the main principle of

any such institution should be to help those who help themselves. That the Society's pensioners do not

become such so long as they are able to support themselves, is evinced by the significant fact that the average

age of those now upon the list is seventyseven; that they are not wasteful is proved by the fact that the

whole sum expended on their relief is but 500 pounds ayear; that the Institution does not restrict itself to any

narrow confines, is shown by the circumstance, that the pensioners come from all parts of England, whilst all

the expenses are paid from the annual income and interest on stock, and therefore are not disproportionate to

Such is the Institution which appeals to you through me, as a most unworthy advocate, for sympathy and

support, an Institution which has for its President a nobleman whose whole possessions are remarkable for

taste and beauty, and whose gardener's laurels are famous throughout the world. In the list of its

vicepresidents there are the names of many noblemen and gentlemen of great influence and station, and I

have been struck in glancing through the list of its supporters, with the sums written against the names of the

numerous nurserymen and seedsmen therein comprised. I hope the day will come when every gardener in

The gardener particularly needs such a provision as this Institution affords. His gains are not great; he knows

gold and silver more as being of the colour of fruits and flowers than by its presence in his pockets; he is

subjected to that kind of labour which renders him peculiarly liable to infirmity; and when old age comes

upon him, the gardener is of all men perhaps best able to appreciate the merits of such an institution.

the benefits of such a society are obvious. In the culture of flowers there cannot, by their very nature, be

anything, solitary or exclusive. The wind that blows over the cottager's porch, sweeps also over the grounds

of the nobleman; and as the rain descends on the just and on the unjust, so it communicates to all gardeners,

both rich and poor, an interchange of pleasure and enjoyment; and the gardener of the rich man, in

developing and enhancing a fruitful flavour or a delightful scent, is, in some sort, the gardener of everybody

The love of gardening is associated with all conditions of men, and all periods of time. The scholar and the

statesman, men of peace and men of war, have agreed in all ages to delight in gardens. The most ancient

people of the earth had gardens where there is now nothing but solitary heaps of earth. The poor man in

crowded cities gardens still in jugs and basins and bottles: in factories and workshops people garden; and

even the prisoner is found gardening in his lonely cell, after years and years of solitary confinement. Surely,

then, the gardener who produces shapes and objects so lovely and so comforting, should have some hold

I will call upon you to drink "Prosperity to the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution," and I beg to couple with

that toast the name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his deeds,

and who has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre which no title and no riches could confer.

My office has compelled me to burst into bloom so often that I could wish there were a closer parallel

between myself and the American aloe. It is particularly agreeable and appropriate to know that the parents of

this Institution are to be found in the seed and nursery trade; and the seed having yielded such good fruit, and

the nursery having produced such a healthy child, I have the greatest pleasure in proposing the health of the

My observation of the signboards of this country has taught me that its conventional gardeners are always

jolly, and always three in number. Whether that conventionality has reference to the Three Graces, or to those

very significant letters, L., S., D., I do not know. Those mystic letters are, however, most important, and no

society can have officers of more importance than its Treasurers, nor can it possibly give them too much to

[On Thursday, January 6, 1853, at the rooms of the Society of Artists, in Temple Row, Birmingham, a large

company assembled to witness the presentation of a testimonial to Mr. Charles Dickens, consisting of a

silvergilt salver and a diamond ring. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute, and the address which

GENTLEMEN, I feel it very difficult, I assure you, to tender my acknowledgments to you, and through you,

to those many friends of mine whom you represent, for this honour and distinction which you have conferred

upon me. I can most honestly assure you, that it is in the power of no great representative of numbers of

people to awaken such happiness in me as is inspired by this token of goodwill and remembrance, coming to

me direct and fresh from the numbers themselves. I am truly sensible, gentlemen, that my friends who have

united in this address are partial in their kindness, and regard what I have done with too great favour. But I

may say, with reference to one class some members of which, I presume, are included there that I should

in my own eyes be very unworthy both of the generous gift and the generous feeling which has been evinced,

and this occasion, instead of pleasure, would give me nothing but pain, if I was unable to assure them, and

those who are in front of this assembly, that what the working people have found me towards them in my

books, I am throughout my life. Gentlemen, whenever I have tried to hold up to admiration their fortitude,

patience, gentleness, the reasonableness of their nature, so accessible to persuasion, and their extraordinary

goodness one towards another, I have done so because I have first genuinely felt that admiration myself, and

have been thoroughly imbued with the sentiment which I sought to communicate to others.

Gentlemen, I accept this salver and this ring as far above all price to me, as very valuable in themselves, and

as beautiful specimens of the workmanship of this town, with great emotion, I assure you, and with the

liveliest gratitude. You remember something, I daresay, of the old romantic stories of those charmed rings

which would lose their brilliance when their wearer was in danger, or would press his finger reproachfully

when he was going to do wrong. In the very improbable event of my being in the least danger of deserting the

principles which have won me these tokens, I am sure the diamond in that ring would assume a clouded

aspect to my faithless eye, and would, I know, squeeze a throb of pain out of my treacherous heart. But I have

not the least misgiving on that point; and, in this confident expectation, I shall remove my own old diamond

ring from my left hand, and in future wear the Birmingham ring on my right, where its grasp will keep me in

mind of the good friends I have here, and in vivid remembrance of this happy hour.

Gentlemen, in conclusion, allow me to thank you and the Society to whom these rooms belong, that the

presentation has taken place in an atmosphere so congenial to me, and in an apartment decorated with so

many beautiful works of art, among which I recognize before me the productions of friends of mine, whose

labours and triumphs will never be subjects of indifference to me. I thank those gentlemen for giving me the

opportunity of meeting them here on an occasion which has some connexion with their own proceedings;

and, though last not least, I tender my acknowledgments to that charming presence, without which nothing

beautiful can be complete, and which is endearingly associated with rings of a plainer description, and which,

I must confess, awakens in my mind at the present moment a feeling of regret that I am not in a condition to

make an offer of these testimonials. I beg you, gentlemen, to commend me very earnestly and gratefully to

our absent friends, and to assure them of my affectionate and heartfelt respect.

The company then adjourned to Dee's Hotel, where a banquet took place, at which about 220 persons were

present, among whom were some of the most distinguished of the Royal Academicians. To the toast of "The

Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, I am happy, on behalf of many labourers in that great field of literature to which

you have pledged the toast, to thank you for the tribute you have paid to it. Such an honour, rendered by

acclamation in such a place as this, seems to me, if I may follow on the same side as the venerable

Archdeacon (Sandford) who lately addressed you, and who has inspired me with a gratification I can never

forget such an honour, gentlemen, rendered here, seems to me a twosided illustration of the position that

literature holds in these latter and, of course, "degenerate" days. To the great compact phalanx of the people,

by whose industry, perseverance, and intelligence, and their result in moneywealth, such places as

Birmingham, and many others like it, have arisen to that great centre of support, that comprehensive

experience, and that beating heart, literature has turned happily from individual patrons sometimes

munificent, often sordid, always few and has there found at once its highest purpose, its natural range of

action, and its best reward. Therefore it is right also, as it seems to me, not only that literature should receive

honour here, but that it should render honour, too, remembering that if it has undoubtedly done good to

Birmingham, Birmingham has undoubtedly done good to it. From the shame of the purchased dedication,

from the scurrilous and dirty work of Grub Street, from the dependent seat on sufferance at my Lord Duke's

table today, and from the sponginghouse or Marshalsea tomorrow from that venality which, by a fine

moral retribution, has degraded statesmen even to a greater extent than authors, because the statesman

entertained a low belief in the universality of corruption, while the author yielded only to the dire necessity of

his calling from all such evils the people have set literature free. And my creed in the exercise of that

profession is, that literature cannot be too faithful to the people in return cannot too ardently advocate the

cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have heard it sometimes said and what is worse, as

expressing something more coldblooded, I have sometimes seen it written that literature has suffered by

this change, that it has degenerated by being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the case: nor do I

believe that you have made the discovery either. But let a good book in these "bad" times be made accessible,

even upon an abstruse and difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate interest to mankind, and my life

Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at this moment many working men infinitely

better versed in Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the days of

boughtandsold dedications and dear books. I ask anyone to consider for himself who, at this time, gives the

greatest relative encouragement to the dissemination of such useful publications as "Macaulay's History,"

"Layard's Researches," "Tennyson's Poems," "The Duke of Wellington's published Despatches," or the

minutest truths (if any truth can be called minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is

with all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a lecture upon art if we had the good

fortune to listen to one to morrow by my distinguished friend the President of the Royal Academy.

However small the audience, however contracted the circle in the water, in the first instance, the people are

nearer the wider range outside, and the Sister Arts, while they instruct them, derive a wholesome advantage

and improvement from their ready sympathy and cordial response. I may instance the case of my friend Mr.

Ward's magnificent picture; and the reception of that picture here is an example that it is not now the

province of art in painting to hold itself in monastic seclusion, that it cannot hope to rest on a single

foundation for its great temple, on the mere classic pose of a figure, or the folds of a drapery but that it

must be imbued with human passions and action, informed with human right and wrong, and, being so

informed, it may fearlessly put itself upon its trial, like the criminal of old, to be judged by God and its

Gentlemen, to return and conclude, as I shall have occasion to trouble you again. For this time I have only

once again to repeat what I have already said. As I begun with literature, I shall end with it. I would simply

say that I believe no true man, with anything to tell, need have the least misgiving, either for himself or his

message, before a large number of hearers always supposing that he be not afflicted with the coxcombical

idea of writing down to the popular intelligence, instead of writing the popular intelligence up to himself, if,

perchance, he be above it; and, provided always that he deliver himself plainly of what is in him, which

seems to be no unreasonable stipulation, it being supposed that he has some dim design of making himself

understood. On behalf of that literature to which you have done so much honour, I beg to thank you most

cordially, and on my own behalf, for the most flattering reception you have given to one whose claim is, that

[Later in the evening, Mr. Dickens gave as a toast, "The Educational Institutions of Birmingham," in the

I am requested to propose or, according to the hypothesis of my friend, Mr. Owen, I am in the temporary

character of a walking advertisement to advertise to you the Educational Institutions of Birmingham; an

advertisement to which I have the greatest pleasure in calling your attention, Gentlemen, it is right that I

should, in so many words, mention the more prominent of these institutions, not because your local memories

require any prompting, but because the enumeration implies what has been done here, what you are doing,

and what you will yet do. I believe the first is the King Edward's Grammar School, with its various branches,

and prominent among them is that most admirable means of training the wives of working men to be good

wives and working wives, the prime ornament of their homes, and the cause of happiness to others I mean

those excellent girls' schools in various parts of the town, which, under the excellent superintendence of the

principal, I should most sincerely desire to see in every town in England. Next, I believe, is the Spring Hill

College, a learned institution belonging to the body of Independents, foremost among whose professors

literature is proud to hail Mr. Henry Rogers as one of the soundest and ablest contributors to the Edinburgh

Review. The next is the Queen's College, which, I may say, is only a newlyborn child; but, in the hands of

such an admirable Doctor, we may hope to see it arrive at a vigorous maturity. The next is the School of

Design, which, as has been well observed by my friend Sir Charles Eastlake, is invaluable in such a place as

this; and, lastly, there is the Polytechnic Institution, with regard to which I had long ago occasion to express

my profound conviction that it was of unspeakable importance to such a community as this, when I had the

honour to be present, under the auspices of your excellent representative, Mr. Scholefield. This is the last of

what has been done in an educational way. They are all admirable in their kind; but I am glad to find that

more is yet doing. A few days ago I received a Birmingham newspaper, containing a most interesting account

of a preliminary meeting for the formation of a Reformatory School for juvenile delinquents. You are not

exempt here from the honour of saving these poor, neglected, and wretched outcasts. I read of one infant, six

years old, who has been twice as many times in the hands of the police as years have passed over his devoted

head. These are the eggs from which gaolbirds are hatched; if you wish to check that dreadful brood, you

Lastly, I am rejoiced to find that there is on foot a scheme for a new Literary and Scientific Institution, which

would be worthy even of this place, if there was nothing of the kind in it an institution, as I understand it,

where the words "exclusion" and "exclusiveness" shall be quite unknown where all classes may assemble in

common trust, respect, and confidence where there shall be a great gallery of painting and statuary open to

the inspection and admiration of all comers where there shall be a museum of models in which industry

may observe its various sources of manufacture, and the mechanic may work out new combinations, and

arrive at new results where the very mines under the earth and under the sea shall not be forgotten, but

presented in little to the inquiring eye an institution, in short, where many and many of the obstacles which

now inevitably stand in the rugged way of the poor inventor shall be smoothed away, and where, if he have

I observe with unusual interest and gratification, that a body of gentlemen are going for a time to lay aside

their individual prepossessions on other subjects, and, as good citizens, are to be engaged in a design as

patriotic as well can be. They have the intention of meeting in a few days to advance this great object, and I

call upon you, in drinking this toast, to drink success to their endeavour, and to make it the pledge by all good

If I strictly followed out the list of educational institutions in Birmingham, I should not have done here, but I

intend to stop, merely observing that I have seen within a short walk of this place one of the most interesting

and practical Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb that has ever come under my observation. I have seen in the

factories and workshops of Birmingham such beautiful order and regularity, and such great consideration for

the workpeople provided, that they might justly be entitled to be considered educational too. I have seen in

your splendid Town Hall, when the cheap concerts are going on there, also an admirable educational

institution. I have seen their results in the demeanour of your working people, excellently balanced by a nice

instinct, as free from servility on the one hand, as from selfconceit on the other. It is a perfect delight to

have need to ask a question, if only from the manner of the reply a manner I never knew to pass unnoticed

by an observant stranger. Gather up those threads, and a great marry more I have not touched upon, and

weaving all into one good fabric, remember how much is included under the general head of the Educational

[At the annual Dinner of the Royal Academy, the President, Sir Charles Eastlake, proposed as a toast, "The

Interests of Literature," and selected for the representatives of the world of letters, the Dean of St. Paul's and

MR DICKENS then addressed the President, who, it should be mentioned, occupied a large and handsome

chair, the back covered with crimson velvet, placed just before Stanfield's picture of THE VICTORY.

Mr. Dickens, after tendering his acknowledgments of the toast, and the honour done him in associating his

name with it, said that those acknowledgments were not the less heartfelt because he was unable to recognize

in this toast the President's usual disinterestedness; since English literature could scarcely be remembered in

any place, and, certainly, not in a school of art, without a very distinct remembrance of his own tasteful

writings, to say nothing of that other and better part of himself, which, unfortunately, was not visible upon

If, like the noble Lord, the CommanderinChief (Viscount Hardinge), he (Mr. Dickens) might venture to

illustrate his brief thanks with one word of reference to the noble picture painted by a very dear friend of his,

which was a little eclipsed that evening by the radiant and rubicund chair which the President now so happily

toned down, he would beg leave to say that, as literature could nowhere be more appropriately honoured than

in that place, so he thought she could nowhere feel a higher gratification in the ties that bound her to the sister

arts. He ever felt in that place that literature found, through their instrumentality, always a new expression,

[At a dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, on the above date, Mr. Justice Talfourd

proposed as a toast "AngloSaxon Literature," and alluded to Mr. Dickens as having employed fiction as a

means of awakening attention to the condition of the oppressed and suffering classes:]

"MR. DICKENS replied to this toast in a graceful and playful strain. In the former part of the evening, in

reply to a toast on the chancery department, ViceChancellor Wood, who spoke in the absence of the Lord

Chancellor, made a sort of defence of the Court of Chancery, not distinctly alluding to Bleak House, but

evidently not without reference to it. The amount of what he said was, that the Court had received a great

many more hard opinions than it merited; that they had been parsimoniously obliged to perform a great

amount of business by a very inadequate number of judges; but that more recently the number of judges had

been increased to seven, and there was reason to hope that all business brought before it would now be

"Mr. Dickens alluded playfully to this item of intelligence; said he was exceedingly happy to hear it, as he

trusted now that a suit, in which he was greatly interested, would speedily come to an end. I heard a little

byconversation between Mr. Dickens and a gentleman of the bar, who sat opposite me, in which the latter

seemed to be reiterating the same assertions, and I understood him to say, that a case not extraordinarily

complicated might be got through with in three months. Mr. Dickens said he was very happy to hear it; but I

fancied there was a little shade of incredulity in his manner; however, the incident showed one thing, that is,

that the chancery were not insensible to the representations of Dickens; but the whole tone of the thing was

[The first of the Readings generously given by Mr. Charles Dickens on behalf of the Birmingham and

Midland Institute, took place on Tuesday evening, December 27, 1853, at the Birmingham Town Hall, where,

notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, nearly two thousand persons had assembled. The work

selected was the CHRISTMAS CAROL. The high mimetic powers possessed by Mr. Dickens enabled him to

personate with remarkable force the various characters of the story, and with admirable skill to pass rapidly

from the hard, unbelieving Scrooge, to trusting and thankful Bob Cratchit, and from the genial fulness of

Scrooge's nephew, to the hideous mirth of the party assembled in Old Joe the Ragshop keeper's parlour. The

reading occupied more than three hours, but so interested were the audience, that only one or two left the Hall

previously to its termination, and the loud and frequent bursts of applause attested the successful discharge of

the reader's arduous task. On Thursday evening Mr. Dickens read THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. The

Hall was again well ruled, and the tale, though deficient in the dramatic interest of the CAROL, was listened

to with attention, and rewarded with repeated applause. On Friday evening, the CHRISTMAS CAROL was

read a second time to a large assemblage of workpeople, for whom, at Mr. Dickens's special request, the

major part of the vast edifice was reserved. Before commencing the tale, Mr. Dickens delivered the following

brief address, almost every sentence of which was received with loudly expressed applause.]

MY GOOD FRIENDS, When I first imparted to the committee of the projected Institute my particular wish

that on one of the evenings of my readings here the main body of my audience should be composed of

working men and their families, I was animated by two desires; first, by the wish to have the great pleasure of

meeting you face to face at this Christmas time, and accompany you myself through one of my little

Christmas books; and second, by the wish to have an opportunity of stating publicly in your presence, and in

the presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the Institute will, from the beginning, recognise one

great principle strong in reason and justice which I believe to be essential to the very life of such an

Institution. It is, that the working man shall, from the first unto the last, have a share in the management of an

Institution which is designed for his benefit, and which calls itself by his name.

I have no fear here of being misunderstood of being supposed to mean too much in this. If there ever was a

time when any one class could of itself do much for its own good, and for the welfare of society which I

greatly doubt that time is unquestionably past. It is in the fusion of different classes, without confusion; in

the bringing together of employers and employed; in the creating of a better common understanding among

those whose interests are identical, who depend upon each other, who are vitally essential to each other, and

who never can be in unnatural antagonism without deplorable results, that one of the chief principles of a

Mechanics' Institution should consist. In this world a great deal of the bitterness among us arises from an

imperfect understanding of one another. Erect in Birmingham a great Educational Institution, properly

educational; educational of the feelings as well as of the reason; to which all orders of Birmingham men

contribute; in which all orders of Birmingham men meet; wherein all orders of Birmingham men are

faithfully represented and you will erect a Temple of Concord here which will be a model edifice to the

Contemplating as I do the existence of the Artisans' Committee, which not long ago considered the

establishment of the Institute so sensibly, and supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat the gentlemen

earnest I know in the good work, and who are now among us, by all means to avoid the great shortcoming

of similar institutions; and in asking the working man for his confidence, to set him the great example and

give him theirs in return. You will judge for yourselves if I promise too much for the working man, when I

say that he will stand by such an enterprise with the utmost of his patience, his perseverance, sense, and

support; that I am sure he will need no charitable aid or condescending patronage; but will readily and

cheerfully pay for the advantages which it confers; that he will prepare himself in individual cases where he

feels that the adverse circumstances around him have rendered it necessary; in a word, that he will feel his

responsibility like an honest man, and will most honestly and manfully discharge it. I now proceed to the

[At the close of the reading Mr. Dickens received a vote of thanks, and "three cheers, with three times three."

As soon as the enthusiasm of the audience would allow him to speak, Mr. Dickens said:]

You have heard so much of my voice since we met tonight, that I will only say, in acknowledgment of this

affecting mark of your regard, that I am truly and sincerely interested in you; that any little service I have

rendered to you I have freely rendered from my heart; that I hope to become an honorary member of your

great Institution, and will meet you often there when it becomes practically useful; that I thank you most

affectionately for this new mark of your sympathy and approval; and that I wish you many happy returns of

[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary Dinner in commemoration of the

foundation of the Commercial Travellers' Schools, held at the London Tavern on the above date. Mr. Dickens

I THINK it may be assumed that most of us here present know something about travelling. I do not mean in

distant regions or foreign countries, although I dare say some of us have had experience in that way, but at

home, and within the limits of the United Kingdom. I dare say most of us have had experience of the extinct

"fast coaches," the "Wonders," "Taglionis," and "Tallyhos," of other days. I daresay most of us remember

certain modest postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, through slush and mud, to little country

towns with no visible population, except halfadozen men in smockfrocks, halfadozen women with

umbrellas and pattens, and a washedout dog or so shivering under the gables, to complete the desolate

picture. We can all discourse, I dare say, if so minded, about our recollections of the "Talbot," the "Queen's

Head," or the "Lion" of those days. We have all been to that room on the ground floor on one side of the old

inn yard, not quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the cruets on the sideboard were

usually absorbed by the skirts of the boxcoats that hung from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid us

at every turn, like so many human mantraps; where county members, framed and glazed, were eternally

presenting that petition which, somehow or other, had made their glory in the county, although nothing else

had ever come of it. Where the books in the windows always wanted the first, last, and middle leaves, and

where the one man was always arriving at some unusual hour in the night, and requiring his breakfast at a

similarly singular period of the day. I have no doubt we could all be very eloquent on the comforts of our

favourite hotel, wherever it was its beds, its stables, its vast amount of posting, its excellent cheese, its head

waiter, its capital dishes, its pigeonpies, or its 1820 port. Or possibly we could recal our chaste and innocent

admiration of its landlady, or our fraternal regard for its handsome chambermaid. A celebrated domestic critic

once writing of a famous actress, renowned for her virtue and beauty, gave her the character of being an

"eminently gatherabletoone'sarms sort of person." Perhaps some one amongst us has borne a somewhat

similar tribute to the mental charms of the fair deities who presided at our hotels.

With the travelling characteristics of later times, we are all, no doubt, equally familiar. We know all about

that station to which we must take our ticket, although we never get there; and the other one at which we

arrive after dark, certain to find it half a mile from the town, where the old road is sure to have been

abolished, and the new road is going to be made where the old neighbourhood has been tumbled down, and

the new one is not half built up. We know all about that party on the platform who, with the best intentions,

can do nothing for our luggage except pitch it into all sorts of unattainable places. We know all about that

short omnibus, in which one is to be doubled up, to the imminent danger of the crown of one's hat; and about

that fly, whose leading peculiarity is never to be there when it is wanted. We know, too, how instantaneously

the lights of the station disappear when the train starts, and about that grope to the new Railway Hotel, which

will be an excellent house when the customers come, but which at present has nothing to offer but a liberal

I record these little incidents of home travel mainly with the object of increasing your interest in the purpose

of this night's assemblage. Every traveller has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from

his wandering. If he has no home, he learns the same lesson unselfishly by turning to the homes of other men.

He may have his experiences of cheerful and exciting pleasures abroad; but home is the best, after all, and its

pleasures are the most heartily and enduringly prized. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, every one must be

prepared to learn that commercial travellers, as a body, know how to prize those domestic relations from

which their pursuits so frequently sever them; for no one could possibly invent a more delightful or more

convincing testimony to the fact than they themselves have offered in founding and maintaining a school for

the children of deceased or unfortunate members of their own body; those children who now appeal to you in

It is to support that school, founded with such high and friendly objects, so very honourable to your calling,

and so useful in its solid and practical results, that we are here tonight. It is to roof that building which is to

shelter the children of your deceased friends with one crowning ornament, the best that any building can

have, namely, a receipt stamp for the full amount of the cost. It is for this that your active sympathy is

appealed to, for the completion of your own good work. You know how to put your hands to the plough in

earnest as well as any men in existence, for this little book informs me that you raised last year no less a sum

than 8000 pounds, and while fully half of that sum consisted of new donations to the building fund, I find that

the regular revenue of the charity has only suffered to the extent of 30 pounds. After this, I most earnestly and

sincerely say that were we all authors together, I might boast, if in my profession were exhibited the same

I will not urge on you the casualties of a life of travel, or the vicissitudes of business, or the claims fostered

by that bond of brotherhood which ought always to exist amongst men who are united in a common pursuit.

You have already recognized those claims so nobly, that I will not presume to lay them before you in any

further detail. Suffice it to say that I do not think it is in your nature to do things by halves. I do not think you

could do so if you tried, and I have a moral certainty that you never will try. To those gentlemen present who

are not members of the travellers' body, I will say in the words of the French proverb, "Heaven helps those

who help themselves." The Commercial Travellers having helped themselves so gallantly, it is clear that the

visitors who come as a sort of celestial representatives ought to bring that aid in their pockets which the

precept teaches us to expect from them. With these few remarks, I beg to give you as a toast, "Success to the

IT does not require any extraordinary sagacity in a commercial assembly to appreciate the dire evils of war.

The great interests of trade enfeebled by it, the enterprise of better times paralysed by it, all the peaceful arts

bent down before it, too palpably indicate its character and results, so that far less practical intelligence than

that by which I am surrounded would be sufficient to appreciate the horrors of war. But there are seasons

when the evils of peace, though not so acutely felt, are immeasurably greater, and when a powerful nation, by

admitting the right of any autocrat to do wrong, sows by such complicity the seeds of its own ruin, and

overshadows itself in time to come with that fatal influence which great and ambitious powers are sure to

Therefore it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the tree has not its root in English ground from which the yard

wand can be made that will measure the mine has not its place in English soil that will supply the material

of a pair of scales to weigh the influence that may be at stake in the war in which we are now straining all our

energies. That war is, at any time and in any shape, a most dreadful and deplorable calamity, we need no

proverb to tell us; but it is just because it is such a calamity, and because that calamity must not for ever be

impending over us at the fancy of one man against all mankind, that we must not allow that man to darken

from our view the figures of peace and justice between whom and us he now interposes.

Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a time when the true spirits of two countries were really fighting in

the cause of human advancement and freedom no matter what diplomatic notes or other nameless

botherations, from number one to one hundred thousand and one, may have preceded their taking the field

if ever there were a time when noble hearts were deserving well of mankind by exposing themselves to the

obedient bayonets of a rash and barbarian tyrant, it is now, when the faithful children of England and France

are fighting so bravely in the Crimea. Those faithful children are the admiration and wonder of the world, so

gallantly are they discharging their duty; and therefore I propose to an assembly, emphatically representing

the interests and arts of peace, to drink the health of the Allied Armies of England and France, with all

If the President of this Institution had been here, I should possibly have made one of the best speeches you

ever heard; but as he is not here, I shall turn to the next toast on my list: "The health of your worthy

Treasurer, Mr. George Moore," a name which is a synonym for integrity, enterprise, public spirit, and

benevolence. He is one of the most zealous officers I ever saw in my life; he appears to me to have been

doing nothing during the last week but rushing into and out of railwaycarriages, and making eloquent

speeches at all sorts of public dinners in favour of this charity. Last evening he was at Manchester, and this

evening he comes here, sacrificing his time and convenience, and exhausting in the meantime the contents of

two vast leaden inkstands and no end of pens, with the energy of fifty bankers' clerks rolled into one. But I

clearly foresee that the Treasurer will have so much to do tonight, such gratifying sums to acknowledge and

such large lines of figures to write in his books, that I feel the greatest consideration I can show him is to

propose his health without further observation, leaving him to address you in his own behalf. I propose to

you, therefore, the health of Mr. George Moore, the Treasurer of this charity, and I need hardly add that it is

So many travellers have been going up Mont Blanc lately, both in fact and in fiction, that I have heard

recently of a proposal for the establishment of a Company to employ Sir Joseph Paxton to take it down. Only

one of those travellers, however, has been enabled to bring Mont Blanc to Piccadilly, and, by his own ability

and good humour, so to thaw its eternal ice and snow, as that the most timid lady may ascend it twice aday,

"during the holidays," without the smallest danger or fatigue. Mr. Albert Smith, who is present amongst us

tonight, is undoubtedly "a traveller." I do not know whether he takes many orders, but this I can testify, on

behalf of the children of his friends, that he gives them in the most liberal manner.

We have also amongst us my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, who is also a traveller, not only in right of his

able edition of Goldsmith's "Traveller," but in right of his admirable Handbook, which proves him to be a

traveller in the right spirit through all the labyrinths of London. We have also amongst us my friend Horace

Mayhew, very well known also for his books, but especially for his genuine admiration of the company at

that end of the room [MR. DICKENS HERE POINTED TO THE LADIES GALLERY], and who, whenever

the fair sex is mentioned, will be found to have the liveliest personal interest in the conversation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to propose to you the health of these three distinguished visitors. They are

all admirable speakers, but Mr. Albert Smith has confessed to me, that on fairly balancing his own merits as a

speaker and a singer, he rather thinks he excels in the latter art. I have, therefore, yielded to his estimate of

himself, and I have now the pleasure of informing you that he will lead off the speeches of the other two

gentlemen with a song. Mr. Albert Smith has just said to me in an earnest tone of voice, "What song would

you recommend?" and I replied, "Galignani's Messenger." Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore beg to propose

the health of Messrs. Albert Smith, Peter Cunningham, and Horace Mayhew, and call on the firstnamed

I CANNOT, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception accorded to me by this great assembly,

than by promising to compress what I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. It is more than

eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who "thought they should be heard for their much

speaking." As they have propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe that they flourish just now

to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific

race. The noble lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about a week ago, that

my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated in this place what the whole country knows perfectly

well to be true, and what no man in it can by possibility better know to be true than those disinterested

supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when

he first became premier I mean that he did officially and habitually joke, at a time when this country was

plunged in deep disgrace and distress I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that the man of this

age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not blush

for the tremendous audacity of having so come between the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with

reference to the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. Now, I have some slight acquaintance with

theatricals, private and public, and I will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to

form a company of Her Majesty's servants, I think I should know where to put my hand on "the comic old

gentleman;" nor, that if I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to go to

for the tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that

contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these and on other boards, in which the principal

objects thrown about are loaves and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the reason for these private

theatricals, and the reason why, however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is

not the faintest present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It is this: The public theatricals which the

noble lord is so condescending as to manage are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts

so illdistributed, the company so full of "walking gentlemen," the managers have such large families, and

are so bent upon putting those families into what is theatrically called "first business" not because of their

aptitude for it, but because they ARE their families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition.

We have seen the COMEDY OF ERRORS played so dismally like a tragedy that we really cannot bear it. We

are, therefore, making bold to get up the SCHOOL OF REFORM, and we hope, before the play is out, to

improve that noble lord by our performance very considerably. If he object that we have no right to improve

him without his license, we venture to claim that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful

Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as my trade and calling is not associated

with politics, perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I came to be here, because reasons similar to those

which have influenced me may still be trembling in the balance in the minds of others. I want at all times, in

full sincerity, to do my duty by my countrymen. If I feel an attachment towards them, there is nothing

disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence and friendship

that they have long reposed in me. My sphere of action which I shall never change I shall never overstep,

further than this, or for a longer period than I do to night. By literature I have lived, and through literature I

have been content to serve my country; and I am perfectly well aware that I cannot serve two masters. In my

sphere of action I have tried to understand the heavier social grievances, and to help to set them right. When

the TIMES newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to the ghastly absurdity of that vast

labyrinth of misplaced men and misdirected things, which had made England unable to find on the face of the

earth, an enemy one twentieth part so potent to effect the misery and ruin of her noble defenders as she has

been herself, I believe that the gloomy silence into which the country fell was by far the darkest aspect in

which a great people had been exhibited for many years. With shame and indignation lowering among all

classes of society, and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and

crime, which is always below us with little adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent

understanding of the general mind, in Parliament with the machinery of Government and the legislature

going round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if they left it to its last remaining

function of destroying itself, when it had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them I did

and do believe that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could possibly take, was, the awaking of the

people, the outspeaking of the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty to effect a great

peaceful constitutional change in the administration of their own affairs. At such a crisis this association

arose; at such a crisis I joined it: considering its further case to be if further case could possibly be needed

that what is everybody's business is nobody's business, that men must be gregarious in good citizenship as

well as in other things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a centre of attraction for particles to fly

to, before any serviceable body with recognised functions can come into existence. This association has

arisen, and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have heard in the main but three, which I will now

briefly notice. It is said that it is proposed by this association to exercise an influence, through the

constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not the least hesitation in saying that I have the smallest

amount of faith in the House of Commons at present existing and that I consider the exercise of such

influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this country. I was reading no later than yesterday the

book of Mr. Pepys, which is rather a favourite of mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, writing of the

"My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest grief to him in the world that he should be

put upon this trust of being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can see, out of any

Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many years after a Reform Bill, the house of

Commons is so little changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that bills which cramp

and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so easily passed, and how it happens that

measures for their real interests are so very difficult to be got through Parliament. I will not analyse the

confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases its deadening influences on the memory of that

Honourable Member who was once a candidate for the honour of your and my independent vote and

interest. I will not ask what is that Secretarian figure, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its

finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes and

definitions of Shakespeare's Touchstone the retort courteous the quip modest the reply churlish the

reproof valiant the countercheck quarrelsome the lie circumstantial and the lie direct are of

immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, and the education, of a

whole people. I will not penetrate into the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard of Party

keeps his strangled public questions, and with regard to which, when he gives the key to his wife, the new

comer, he strictly charges her on no account to open the door. I will merely put it to the experience of

everybody here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, a little dim of

sight, a little slow of understanding, and whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiency invalided state to require

close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and whether it is not capable of

considerable improvement? I believe that, in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and

independence, the people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have its memory jogged;

and be kept awake when it happens to have taken too much Ministerial narcotic; it must be trotted about, and

must be bustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. I hold that no power can deprive

us of the right to administer our functions as a body comprising electors from all parts of the country,

associated together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, unmeaning routine, or

This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this Association sets class against class. Is this so?

(CRIES OF "No.") No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in

opposition those two words Aristocracy and People. I am one who can believe in the virtues and uses of

both, and would not on any account deprive either of a single just right belonging to it. I will use, instead of

these words, the terms, the governors and the governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf

between them, in which are lying, newlyburied, thousands on thousands of the bravest and most devoted

men that even England ever bred. It is to prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which,

unchecked, that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary consummation, and to bring

together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge

over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class

against class! That is the very parrot prattle that we have so long heard. Try its justice by the following

example: A respectable gentleman had a large establishment, and a great number of servants, who were

good for nothing, who, when he asked them to give his children bread, gave them stones; who, when they

were told to give those children fish, gave them serpents. When they were ordered to send to the East, they

sent to the West; when they ought to have been serving dinner in the North, they were consulting exploded

cookery books in the South; who wasted, destroyed, tumbled over one another when required to do anything,

and were bringing everything to ruin. At last the respectable gentleman calls his house steward, and says,

even then more in sorrow than in anger, "This is a terrible business; no fortune can stand it no mortal

equanimity can bear it! I must change my system; I must obtain servants who will do their duty." The house

steward throws up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates "Good God, master, you are setting class against

class!" and then rushes off into the servants' hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wicked

I now come to the third objection, which is common among young gentlemen who are not particularly fit for

anything but spending money which they have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, "How very

extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can't mind their own business." I think it will

occur to all that a very sufficient mode of disposing of this objection is to say, that it is our own business we

mind when we come forward in this way, and it is to prevent it from being mismanaged by them. I observe

from the Parliamentary debates which have of late, bythebye, frequently suggested to me that there is

this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull

rushes at the scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull I have observed from the

Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and the

countercheck quarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, by

whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should have no difficulty in adding two or

three cases to the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I

consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient

general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be.

There is, however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it

that I will substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St.

Stephen's. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of

Exchequer, and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In

the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Cocker was born, and died; Walkinghame, of

the Tutor's Assistant, and well versed in figures, was also born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book

keepers, and actuaries, were born, and died. Still official routine inclined to these notched sticks, as if they

were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm

wood called "tallies." In the reign of George III. an inquiry was made by some revolutionary spirit, whether

pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, being in existence, this obstinate adherence to an obsolete custom

All the red tape in the country grew redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it

took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1834 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation

of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such wornout, wormeaten, rotten old bits

of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatchboxing, on this

mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any intelligent person

that nothing could be easier than to allow them to be carried away for firewood by the miserable people who

live in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine required that they never

should be, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass

that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks,

set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House

of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build others; we are now in

the second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old

Now, I think we may reasonably remark, in conclusion, that all obstinate adherence to rubbish which the time

has long outlived, is certain to have in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; and that

will some day set fire to something or other; which, if given boldly to the winds would have been harmless;

but which, obstinately retained, is ruinous. I believe myself that when Administrative Reform goes up it will

be idle to hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance. The great, broad, and true cause that our

public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private

wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly

established as the sun, moon, and stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the country for merit

everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic or democratic, only asking whether it be honest or

true, is, I take it, the true object of this Association. This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large

numbers of the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they may better comprehend, bear in mind,

understand themselves, and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of which there is great need,

that by keeping a vigilant eye on the skirmishers thrown out from time to time by the Party of Generals, they

may see that their feints and manoeuvres do not oppress the small defaulters and release the great, and that

they do not gull the public with a mere fieldday Review of Reform, instead of an earnest, hardfought

Battle. I have had no consultation with any one upon the subject, but I particularly wish that the directors may

devise some means of enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms than subscribers

who have larger resources. I could wish to see great numbers of them belong to us, because I sincerely

Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard asked him for a day for his motion,

"Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed That he is grown so

If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would

say, "First Lord, your duty it is to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. See you, who take the

responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it

toothandnail when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old country,

with its seething hardworked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, and its

crowds of wicked, woe the day when the dangerous man shall find a day for himself, because the head of the

Government failed in his duty in not anticipating it by a brighter and a better one! Name you the day, First

Lord; make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in return may then

not otherwise find a day for you; a day equally associated with the contentment of the loyal, patient,

willing hearted English people, and with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her fair line of children."

[On Saturday Evening Mr. Charles Dickens read his Christmas Carol in the Mechanics' Hall in behalf of the

After the reading the Mayor said, he had been charged by a few gentlemen in Sheffield to present to Mr.

Dickens for his acceptance a very handsome service of table cutlery, a pair of razors, and a pair of fish

carvers, as some substantial manifestation of their gratitude to Mr. Dickens for his kindness in coming to

Sheffield. Henceforth the Christmas of 1855 would be associated in his mind with the name of that

MR. CHARLES DICKENS, in receiving the presentation, said, he accepted with heartfelt delight and cordial

gratitude such beautiful specimens of Sheffieldworkmanship; and he begged to assure them that the kind

observations which had been made by the Mayor, and the way in which they had been responded to by that

assembly, would never be obliterated from his remembrance. The present testified not only to the work of

Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. It was his earnest desire to do right by

his readers, and to leave imaginative and popular literature associated with the private homes and public

rights of the people of England. The case of cutlery with which he had been so kindly presented, should be

retained as an heirloom in his family; and he assured them that he should ever be faithful to his death to the

principles which had earned for him their approval. In taking his reluctant leave of them, he wished them

[At the Anniversary Festival of the Hospital for Sick Children, on Tuesday, February the 9th, 1858, about one

hundred and fifty gentlemen sat down to dinner, in the Freemasons' Hall. Later in the evening all the seats in

the gallery were filled with ladies interested in the success of the Hospital. After the usual loyal and other

toasts, the Chairman, Mr. Dickens, proposed "Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children," and said:]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It is one of my rules in life not to believe a man who may happen to tell me

that he feels no interest in children. I hold myself bound to this principle by all kind consideration, because I

know, as we all must, that any heart which could really toughen its affections and sympathies against those

dear little people must be wanting in so many humanising experiences of innocence and tenderness, as to be

quite an unsafe monstrosity among men. Therefore I set the assertion down, whenever I happen to meet with

it which is sometimes, though not often as an idle word, originating possibly in the genteel languor of the

hour, and meaning about as much as that knowing social lassitude, which has used up the cardinal virtues and

quite found out things in general, usually does mean. I suppose it may be taken for granted that we, who

come together in the name of children and for the sake of children, acknowledge that we have an interest in

them; indeed, I have observed since I sit down here that we are quite in a childlike state altogether,

representing an infant institution, and not even yet a grownup company. A few years are necessary to the

increase of our strength and the expansion of our figure; and then these tables, which now have a few tucks in

them, will be let out, and then this hall, which now sits so easily upon us, will be too tight and small for us.

Nevertheless, it is likely that even we are not without our experience now and then of spoilt children. I do not

mean of our own spoilt children, because nobody's own children ever were spoilt, but I mean the disagreeable

children of our particular friends. We know by experience what it is to have them down after dinner, and,

across the rich perspective of a miscellaneous dessert to see, as in a black dose darkly, the family doctor

looming in the distance. We know, I have no doubt we all know, what it is to assist at those little maternal

anecdotes and table entertainments illustrated with imitations and descriptive dialogue which might not be

inaptly called, after the manner of my friend Mr. Albert Smith, the toilsome ascent of Miss Mary and the

eruption (cutaneous) of Master Alexander. We know what it is when those children won't go to bed; we know

how they prop their eyelids open with their forefingers when they will sit up; how, when they become

fractious, they say aloud that they don't like us, and our nose is too long, and why don't we go? And we are

perfectly acquainted with those kicking bundles which are carried off at last protesting. An eminent

eyewitness told me that he was one of a company of learned pundits who assembled at the house of a very

distinguished philosopher of the last generation to hear him expound his stringent views concerning infant

education and early mental development, and he told me that while the philosopher did this in very beautiful

and lucid language, the philosopher's little boy, for his part, edified the assembled sages by dabbling up to the

elbows in an apple pie which had been provided for their entertainment, having previously anointed his hair

with the syrup, combed it with his fork, and brushed it with his spoon. It is probable that we also have our

similar experiences sometimes, of principles that are not quite practice, and that we know people claiming to

be very wise and profound about nations of men who show themselves to be rather weak and shallow about

But, ladies and gentlemen, the spoilt children whom I have to present to you after this dinner of today are

not of this class. I have glanced at these for the easier and lighter introduction of another, a very different, a

far more numerous, and a far more serious class. The spoilt children whom I must show you are the spoilt

children of the poor in this great city, the children who are, every year, for ever and ever irrevocably spoilt

out of this breathing life of ours by tens of thousands, but who may in vast numbers be preserved if you,

assisting and not contravening the ways of Providence, will help to save them. The two grim nurses, Poverty

and Sickness, who bring these children before you, preside over their births, rock their wretched cradles, nail

down their little coffins, pile up the earth above their graves. Of the annual deaths in this great town, their

unnatural deaths form more than onethird. I shall not ask you, according to the custom as to the other class

I shall not ask you on behalf of these children to observe how good they are, how pretty they are, how clever

they are, how promising they are, whose beauty they most resemble I shall only ask you to observe how

weak they are, and how like death they are! And I shall ask you, by the remembrance of everything that lies

between your own infancy and that so miscalled second childhood when the child's graces are gone and

nothing but its helplessness remains; I shall ask you to turn your thoughts to THESE spoilt children in the

Some years ago, being in Scotland, I went with one of the most humane members of the humane medical

profession, on a morning tour among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of Edinburgh. In

the closes and wynds of that picturesque place I am sorry to remind you what fast friends picturesqueness

and typhus often are we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than many people would believe in a

life. Our way lay from one to another of the most wretched dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out

from the sky, shut out from the air, mere pits and dens. In a room in one of these places, where there was an

empty porridgepot on the cold hearth, with a ragged woman and some ragged children crouching on the

bare ground near it where, I remember as I speak, that the very light, refracted from a high dampstained

and timestained housewall, came trembling in, as if the fever which had shaken everything else there had

shaken even it there lay, in an old eggbox which the mother had begged from a shop, a little feeble,

wasted, wan, sick child. With his little wasted face, and his little hot, worn hands folded over his breast, and

his little bright, attentive eyes, I can see him now, as I have seen him for several years, look in steadily at us.

There he lay in his little frail box, which was not at all a bad emblem of the little body from which he was

slowly parting there he lay, quite quiet, quite patient, saying never a word. He seldom cried, the mother

said; he seldom complained; "he lay there, seemin' to woonder what it was a' aboot." God knows, I thought,

as I stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering reasons for wondering how it could possibly

come to be that he lay there, left alone, feeble and full of pain, when he ought to have been as bright and as

brisk as the birds that never got near him reasons for wondering how he came to be left there, a little

decrepid old man pining to death, quite a thing of course, as if there were no crowds of healthy and happy

children playing on the grass under the summer's sun within a stone's throw of him, as if there were no bright,

moving sea on the other side of the great hill overhanging the city; as if there were no great clouds rushing

over it; as if there were no life, and movement, and vigour anywhere in the world nothing but stoppage and

decay. There he lay looking at us, saying, in his silence, more pathetically than I have ever heard anything

said by any orator in my life, "Will you please to tell me what this means, strange man? and if you can give

me any good reason why I should be so soon, so far advanced on my way to Him who said that children were

to come into His presence and were not to be forbidden, but who scarcely meant, I think, that they should

come by this hard road by which I am travelling; pray give that reason to me, for I seek it very earnestly and

wonder about it very much;" and to my mind he has been wondering about it ever since. Many a poor child,

sick and neglected, I have seen since that time in this London; many a poor sick child I have seen most

affectionately and kindly tended by poor people, in an unwholesome house and under untoward

circumstances, wherein its recovery was quite impossible; but at all such times I have seen my poor little

drooping friend in his eggbox, and he has always addressed his dumb speech to me, and I have always

found him wondering what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious God, such things should be!

Now, ladies and gentlemen, such things need not be, and will not be, if this company, which is a drop of the

lifeblood of the great compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and prevention

which it is mine to offer. Within a quarter of a mile of this place where I speak, stands a courtly old house,

where once, no doubt, blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and married, and

brought their own blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day,

and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimneypieces. In the airy wards into which the old state

drawingrooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted are such little patients that the

attendant nurses look like reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable Christian

ogre. Grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the rooms are such tiny convalescents that they seem

to be playing at having been ill. On the doll's beds are such diminutive creatures that each poor sufferer is

supplied with its tray of toys; and, looking round, you may see how the little tired, flushed cheek has toppled

over half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has mowed down (as I saw

myself) the whole tin soldiery of Europe. On the walls of these rooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish

pictures. At the bed's heads, are pictures of the figure which is the universal embodiment of all mercy and

compassion, the figure of Him who was once a child himself, and a poor one. Besides these little creatures on

the beds, you may learn in that place that the number of small Out patients brought to that house for relief is

no fewer than ten thousand in the compass of one single year. In the room in which these are received, you

may see against the wall a box, on which it is written, that it has been calculated, that if every grateful mother

who brings a child there will drop a penny into it, the Hospital funds may possibly be increased in a year by

so large a sum as forty pounds. And you may read in the Hospital Report, with a glow of pleasure, that these

poor women are so respondent as to have made, even in a toiling year of difficulty and high prices, this

estimated forty, fifty pounds. In the printed papers of this same Hospital, you may read with what a generous

earnestness the highest and wisest members of the medical profession testify to the great need of it; to the

immense difficulty of treating children in the same hospitals with grownup people, by reason of their

different ailments and requirements, to the vast amount of pain that will be assuaged, and of life that will be

saved, through this Hospital; not only among the poor, observe, but among the prosperous too, by reason of

the increased knowledge of children's illnesses, which cannot fail to arise from a more systematic mode of

studying them. Lastly, gentlemen, and I am sorry to say, worst of all (for I must present no rosecoloured

picture of this place to you I must not deceive you;) lastly, the visitor to this Children's Hospital, reckoning

up the number of its beds, will find himself perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn,

with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive, compared with

this vast London, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the Hospital be made better known; I limit myself to

saying better known, because I will not believe that in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, and

brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be well and richly endowed.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this, without a word of adornment which I resolved when I got up not to allow

myself this is the simple case. This is the pathetic case which I have to put to you; not only on behalf of the

thousands of children who annually die in this great city, but also on behalf of the thousands of children who

live half developed, racked with preventible pain, shorn of their natural capacity for health and enjoyment. If

these innocent creatures cannot move you for themselves, how can I possibly hope to move you in their

name? The most delightful paper, the most charming essay, which the tender imagination of Charles Lamb

conceived, represents him as sitting by his fireside on a winter night telling stories to his own dear children,

and delighting in their society, until he suddenly comes to his old, solitary, bachelor self, and finds that they

were but dreamchildren who might have been, but never were. "We are nothing," they say to him; "less than

nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and we must wait upon the tedious shore of Lethe,

millions of ages, before we have existence and a name." "And immediately awaking," he says, "I found

myself in my arm chair." The dream children whom I would now raise, if I could, before every one of you,

according to your various circumstances, should be the dear child you love, the dearer child you have lost, the

child you might have had, the child you certainly have been. Each of these dream children should hold in its

powerful hand one of the little children now lying in the Child's Hospital, or now shut out of it to perish. Each

of these dreamchildren should say to you, "O, help this little suppliant in my name; O, help it for my sake!"

Well! And immediately awaking, you should find yourselves in the Freemasons' Hall, happily arrived at the

end of a rather long speech, drinking "Prosperity to the Hospital for Sick Children," and thoroughly resolved

[On the above date Mr. Dickens gave a reading of his Christmas Carol in the Music Hall, before the members

and subscribers of the Philosophical Institution. At the conclusion of the reading the Lord Provost of

Edinburgh presented him with a massive silver wassail cup. Mr. Dickens acknowledged the tribute as

MY LORD PROVOST, ladies, and gentlemen, I beg to assure you I am deeply sensible of your kind

welcome, and of this beautiful and great surprise; and that I thank you cordially with all my heart. I never

have forgotten, and I never can forget, that I have the honour to be a burgess and guildbrother of the

Corporation of Edinburgh. As long as sixteen or seventeen years ago, the first great public recognition and

encouragement I ever received was bestowed on me in this generous and magnificent city in this city so

distinguished in literature and so distinguished in the arts. You will readily believe that I have carried into the

various countries I have since traversed, and through all my subsequent career, the proud and affectionate

remembrance of that eventful epoch in my life; and that coming back to Edinburgh is to me like coming

Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard so much of my voice tonight, that I will not inflict on you the

additional task of hearing any more. I am better reconciled to limiting myself to these very few words,

because I know and feel full well that no amount of speech to which I could give utterance could possibly

express my sense of the honour and distinction you have conferred on me, or the heartfelt gratification I

[At the thirteenth anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, at

IN our theatrical experience as playgoers we are all equally accustomed to predict by certain little signs and

portents on the stage what is going to happen there. When the young lady, an admiral's daughter, is left alone

to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smart spiritrappings are heard to proceed immediately from

beneath her feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy

coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it will assume a

retrospective biographical character. When any of the performers who belong to the seafaring or marauding

professions are observed to arm themselves with very small swords to which are attached very large hilts, we

predict that the affair will end in a combat. Carrying out the association of ideas, it may have occurred to

some that when I asked my old friend in the chair to allow me to propose a toast I had him in my eye; and I

The duties of a trustee of the Theatrical Fund, an office which I hold, are not so frequent or so great as its

privileges. He is in fact a mere walking gentleman, with the melancholy difference that he has no one to love.

If this advantage could be added to his character it would be one of a more agreeable nature than it is, and his

forlorn position would be greatly improved. His duty is to call every half year at the bankers', when he signs

his name in a large greasy inconvenient book, to certain documents of which he knows nothing, and then he

He, however, has many privileges. It is one of his privileges to watch the steady growth of an institution in

which he takes great interest; it is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the prudence, the goodness,

the selfdenial, and the excellence of a class of persons who have been too long depreciated, and whose

virtues are too much denied, out of the depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And lastly, it is one of

his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose the health of the chairman at the annual dinners of the

institution, when that chairman is one for whose genius he entertains the warmest admiration, and whom he

respects as a friend, and as one who does honour to literature, and in whom literature is honoured. I say when

that is the case, he feels that this last privilege is a great and high one. From the earliest days of this

institution I have ventured to impress on its managers, that they would consult its credit and success by

choosing its chairmen as often as possible within the circle of literature and the arts; and I will venture to say

that no similar institution has been presided over by so many remarkable and distinguished men. I am sure,

however, that it never has had, and that it never will have, simply because it cannot have, a greater lustre cast

upon it than by the presence of the noble English writer who fills the chair tonight.

It is not for me at this time, and in this place, to take on myself to flutter before you the wellthumbed pages

of Mr. Thackeray's books, and to tell you to observe how full they are of wit and wisdom, how outspeaking,

and how devoid of fear or favour; but I will take leave to remark, in paying my due homage and respect to

them, that it is fitting that such a writer and such an institution should be brought together. Every writer of

fiction, although he may not adopt the dramatic form, writes in effect for the stage. He may never write plays;

but the truth and passion which are in him must be more or less reflected in the great mirror which he holds

up to nature. Actors, managers, and authors are all represented in this company, and it maybe supposed that

they all have studied the deep wants of the human heart in many theatres; but none of them could have

studied its mysterious workings in any theatre to greater advantage than in the bright and airy pages of

VANITY FAIR. To this skilful showman, who has so often delighted us, and who has charmed us again

tonight, we have now to wish God speed, and that he may continue for many years to exercise his potent art.

[The reader will already have observed that in the Christmas week of 1853, and on several subsequent

occasions, Mr. Dickens had read the CHRISTMAS CAROL and the CHIMES before public audiences, but

always in aid of the funds of some institution, or for other benevolent purposes. The first reading he ever gave

for his own benefit took place on the above date, in St. Martin's Hall, (now converted into the Queen's

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It may perhaps be in 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 impossible in any

reason to comply with these always accumulating demands, I have had definitively 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 whatever from the chosen pursuits of my life are threefold:

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 confidence 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 occasions, 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

responsibility, to hold with a multitude of persons who will never hear my voice nor see my face. Thus it is

that I come, quite naturally, to be here among you at this time; and thus it is that I proceed to read this little

book, quite as composedly as I might proceed to write it, or to publish it in any other way.

[The following short speech was made at the Banquet of the Royal Academy, after the health of Mr. Dickens

FOLLOWING the order of your toast, I have to take the first part in the duet to be performed in

acknowledgment of the compliment you have paid to literature. In this home of art I feel it to be too much an

interchange of compliments, as it were, between near relations, to enter into any lengthened expression of our

thanks for the honour you have done us. I feel that it would be changing this splendid assembly into a sort of

family party. I may, however, take leave to say that your sister, whom I represent, is strong and healthy; that

she has a very great affection for, and an undying interest in you, and that it is always a very great

gratification to her to see herself so well remembered within these walls, and to know that she is an honoured

[On the above date, a public meeting was held at the Princess's Theatre, for the purpose of establishing the

now famous Royal Dramatic College. Mr. Charles Kean was the chairman, and Mr. Dickens delivered the

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I think I may venture to congratulate you beforehand on the pleasant

circumstance that the movers and seconders of the resolutions which will be submitted to you will, probably,

have very little to say. Through the Report which you have heard read, and through the comprehensive

address of the chairman, the cause which brings us together has been so very clearly stated to you, that it can

stand in need of very little, if of any further exposition. But, as I have the honour to move the first resolution

which this handsome gift, and the vigorous action that must be taken upon it, necessitate, I think I shall only

give expression to what is uppermost in the general mind here, if I venture to remark that, many as the parts

are in which Mr. Kean has distinguished himself on these boards, he has never appeared in one in which the

large spirit of an artist, the feeling of a man, and the grace of a gentleman, have been more admirably blended

than in this day's faithful adherence to the calling of which he is a prosperous ornament, and in this day's

"That the Report of the provisional committee be adopted, and that this meeting joyfully accepts, and

gratefully acknowledges, the gift of five acres of land referred to in the said Report."

It is manifest, I take it, that we are all agreed upon this acceptance and acknowledgment, and that we all know

very well that this generous gift can inspire but one sentiment in the breast of every lover of the dramatic art.

As it is far too often forgotten by those who are indebted to it for many a restorative flight out of this

workingday world, that the silks, and velvets, and elegant costumes of its professors must be every night

exchanged for the hideous coats and waistcoats of the present day, in which we have now the honour and the

misfortune of appearing before you, so when we do meet with a nature so considerably generous as this

donor's, and do find an interest in the real life and struggles of the people who have delighted it, so very

spontaneous and so very liberal, we have nothing to do but to accept and to admire, we have no duty left but

to "take the goods the gods provide us," and to make the best and the most of them. Ladies and gentlemen,

allow me to remark, that in this mode of turning a good gift to the highest account, lies the truest gratitude.

In reference to this, I could not but reflect, whilst Mr. Kean was speaking, that in an hour or two from this

time, the spot upon which we are now assembled will be transformed into the scene of a crafty and a cruel

bond. I know that, a few hours hence, the Grand Canal of Venice will flow, with picturesque fidelity, on the

very spot where I now stand dryshod, and that "the quality of mercy" will be beautifully stated to the

Venetian Council by a learned young doctor from Padua, on these very boards on which we now enlarge

upon the quality of charity and sympathy. Knowing this, it came into my mind to consider how different the

real bond of today from the ideal bond of tonight. Now, all generosity, all forbearance, all forgetfulness of

little jealousies and unworthy divisions, all united action for the general good. Then, all selfishness, all

malignity, all cruelty, all revenge, and all evil, now all good. Then, a bond to be broken within the compass

of a few three or four swiftly passing hours, now, a bond to be valid and of good effect generations

Ladies and gentlemen, of the execution and delivery of this bond, between this generous gentleman on the

one hand, and the united members of a too often and too long disunited art upon the other, be you the

witnesses. Do you attest of everything that is liberal and free in spirit, that is "so nominated in the bond;" and

of everything that is grudging, selfseeking, unjust, or unfair, that it is by no sophistry ever to be found there.

[The following speech was delivered at the annual meeting of the Institutional Association of Lancashire and

Cheshire, held in the Freetrade Hall on the evening of the above day, at which Mr. Dickens presided.]

IT has of late years become noticeable in England that the autumn season produces an immense amount of

public speaking. I notice that no sooner do the leaves begin to fall from the trees, than pearls of great price

begin to fall from the lips of the wise men of the east, and north, and west, and south; and anybody may have

them by the bushel, for the picking up. Now, whether the comet has this year had a quickening influence on

this crop, as it is by some supposed to have had upon the cornharvest and the vintage, I do not know; but I

do know that I have never observed the columns of the newspapers to groan so heavily under a pressure of

orations, each vying with the other in the two qualities of having little or nothing to do with the matter in

hand, and of being always addressed to any audience in the wide world rather than the audience to which it

The autumn having gone, and the winter come, I am so sanguine as to hope that we in our proceedings may

break through this enchanted circle and deviate from this precedent; the rather as we have something real to

do, and are come together, I am sure, in all plain fellowship and straightforwardness, to do it. We have no

little straws of our own to throw up to show us which way any wind blows, and we have no oblique biddings

At the top of the public announcement of this meeting are the words, "Institutional Association of Lancashire

and Cheshire." Will you allow me, in reference to the meaning of those words, to present myself before you

as the embodied spirit of ignorance recently enlightened, and to put myself through a short, voluntary

examination as to the results of my studies. To begin with: the title did not suggest to me anything in the least

like the truth. I have been for some years pretty familiar with the terms, "Mechanics' Institutions," and

"Literary Societies," but they have, unfortunately, become too often associated in my mind with a body of

great pretensions, lame as to some important member or other, which generally inhabits a new house much

too large for it, which is seldom paid for, and which takes the name of the mechanics most grievously in vain,

I, therefore, began my education, in respect of the meaning of this title, very coldly indeed, saying to myself,

"Here's the old story." But the perusal of a very few lines of my book soon gave me to understand that it was

not by any means the old story; in short, that this association is expressly designed to correct the old story,

and to prevent its defects from becoming perpetuated. I learnt that this Institutional Association is the union,

in one central head, of one hundred and fourteen local Mechanics' Institutions and Mutual Improvement

Societies, at an expense of no more than five shillings to each society; suggesting to all how they can best

communicate with and profit by the fountainhead and one another; keeping their best aims steadily before

them; advising them how those aims can be best attained; giving a direct end and object to what might

otherwise easily become waste forces; and sending among them not only oral teachers, but, better still, boxes

of excellent books, called "Free Itinerating Libraries." I learned that these books are constantly making the

circuit of hundreds upon hundreds of miles, and are constantly being read with inexpressible relish by

thousands upon thousands of toiling people, but that they are never damaged or defaced by one rude hand.

These and other like facts lead me to consider the immense importance of the fact, that no little cluster of

working men's cottages can arise in any Lancashire or Cheshire valley, at the foot of any running stream

which enterprise hunts out for waterpower, but it has its educational friend and companion ready for it,

willing for it, acquainted with its thoughts and ways and turns of speech even before it has come into

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the main consideration that has brought me here. No central association at

a distance could possibly do for those working men what this local association does. No central association at

a distance could possibly understand them as this local association does. No central association at a distance

could possibly put them in that familiar and easy communication one with another, as that I, man or boy,

eager for knowledge, in that valley seven miles off, should know of you, man or boy, eager for knowledge, in

that valley twelve miles off, and should occasionally trudge to meet you, that you may impart your learning

in one branch of acquisition to me, whilst I impart mine in another to you. Yet this is distinctly a feature, and

On the other hand, it is not to be supposed that these honest men, however zealous, could, as a rule, succeed

in establishing and maintaining their own institutions of themselves. It is obvious that combination must

materially diminish their cost, which is in time a vital consideration; and it is equally obvious that experience,

essential to the success of all combination, is especially so when its object is to diffuse the results of

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the student of the present profitable history of this society does not stop here in

his learning; when he has got so far, he finds with interest and pleasure that the parent society at certain stated

periods invites the more eager and enterprising members of the local society to submit themselves to

voluntary examination in various branches of useful knowledge, of which examination it takes the charge and

arranges the details, and invites the successful candidates to come to Manchester to receive the prizes and

certificates of merit which it impartially awards. The most successful of the competitors in the list of these

examinations are now among us, and these little marks of recognition and encouragement I shall have the

honour presently of giving them, as they come before you, one by one, for that purpose.

I have looked over a few of those examination papers, which have comprised history, geography, grammar,

arithmetic, bookkeeping, decimal coinage, mensuration, mathematics, social economy, the French language

in fact, they comprise all the keys that open all the locks of knowledge. I felt most devoutly gratified, as to

many of them, that they had not been submitted to me to answer, for I am perfectly sure that if they had been,

I should have had mighty little to bestow upon myself tonight. And yet it is always to be observed and

seriously remembered that these examinations are undergone by people whose lives have been passed in a

continual fight for bread, and whose whole existence, has been a constant wrestle with

I could not but consider, with extraordinary admiration, that these questions have been replied to, not by men

like myself, the business of whose life is with writing and with books, but by men, the business of whose life

Let me endeavour to recall, as well as my memory will serve me, from among the most interesting cases of

prizeholders and certificategainers who will appear before you, some two or three of the most conspicuous

examples. There are two poor brothers from near Chorley, who work from morning to night in a coalpit, and

who, in all weathers, have walked eight miles anight, three nights aweek, to attend the classes in which

they have gained distinction. There are two poor boys from Bollington, who begin life as piecers at one

shilling or eighteenpence aweek, and the father of one of whom was cut to pieces by the machinery at

which he worked, but not before he had himself founded the institution in which this son has since come to

be taught. These two poor boys will appear before you tonight, to take the secondclass prize in chemistry.

There is a plasterer from Bury, sixteen years of age, who took a thirdclass certificate last year at the hands

of Lord Brougham; he is this year again successful in a competition three times as severe. There is a

wagonmaker from the same place, who knew little or absolutely nothing until he was a grown man, and who

has learned all he knows, which is a great deal, in the local institution. There is a chainmaker, in very

humble circumstances, and working hard all day, who walks six miles anight, three nights aweek, to attend

the classes in which he has won so famous a place. There is a moulder in an iron foundry, who, whilst he was

working twelve hours a day before the furnace, got up at four o'clock in the morning to learn drawing. "The

thought of my lads," he writes in his modest account of himself, "in their peaceful slumbers above me, gave

me fresh courage, and I used to think that if I should never receive any personal benefit, I might instruct them

when they came to be of an age to understand the mighty machines and engines which have made our

country, England, pre eminent in the world's history." There is a piecer at muleframes, who could not read

at eighteen, who is now a man of little more than thirty, who is the sole support of an aged mother, who is

arithmetical teacher in the institution in which he himself was taught, who writes of himself that he made the

resolution never to take up a subject without keeping to it, and who has kept to it with such an astonishing

will, that he is now well versed in Euclid and Algebra, and is the best French scholar in Stockport. The

drawingclasses in that same Stockport are taught by a working blacksmith; and the pupils of that working

blacksmith will receive the highest honours of tonight. Well may it be said of that good blacksmith, as it

"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begun, Each

evening sees its clause. Something attempted, something done, Has earn'd a night's repose."

To pass from the successful candidates to the delegates from local societies now before me, and to content

myself with one instance from amongst them. There is among their number a most remarkable man, whose

history I have read with feelings that I could not adequately express under any circumstances, and least of all

when I know he hears me, who worked when he was a mere baby at handloom weaving until he dropped

from fatigue: who began to teach himself as soon as he could earn five shillings aweek: who is now a

botanist, acquainted with every production of the Lancashire valley: who is a naturalist, and has made and

preserved a collection of the eggs of British birds, and stuffed the birds: who is now a conchologist, with a

very curious, and in some respects an original collection of freshwater shells, and has also preserved and

collected the mosses of fresh water and of the sea: who is worthily the president of his own local Literary

So stimulating has been the influence of these bright examples, and many more, that I notice among the

applications from Blackburn for preliminary test examination papers, one from an applicant who gravely fills

up the printed form by describing himself as ten years of age, and who, with equal gravity, describes his

occupation as "nursing a little child." Nor are these things confined to the men. The women employed in

factories, milliners' work, and domestic service, have begun to show, as it is fitting they should, a most

decided determination not to be outdone by the men; and the women of Preston in particular, have so

honourably distinguished themselves, and shown in their examination papers such an admirable knowledge

of the science of household management and household economy, that if I were a working bachelor of

Lancashire or Cheshire, and if I had not cast my eye or set my heart upon any lass in particular, I should

positively get up at four o'clock in the morning with the determination of the ironmoulder himself, and

Now, ladies and gentlemen, these instances, and many more, daily occurring, always accumulating, are surely

better testimony to the working of this Association, than any number of speakers could possibly present to

you. Surely the presence among us of these indefatigable people is the Association's best and most effective

triumph in the present and the past, and is its noblest stimulus to effort in the future. As its temporary

mouthpiece, I would beg to say to that portion of the company who attend to receive the prizes, that the

institution can never hold itself apart from them; can never set itself above them; that their distinction and

success must be its distinction and success; and that there can be but one heart beating between them and it.

In particular, I would most especially entreat them to observe that nothing will ever be further from this

Association's mind than the impertinence of patronage. The prizes that it gives, and the certificates that it

gives, are mere admiring assurances of sympathy with so many striving brothers and sisters, and are only

valuable for the spirit in which they are given, and in which they are received. The prizes are money prizes,

simply because the Institution does not presume to doubt that persons who have so well governed themselves,

know best how to make a little money serviceable because it would be a shame to treat them like grownup

babies by laying it out for them, and because it knows it is given, and knows it is taken, in perfect clearness of

Ladies and Gentlemen, reverting once more to the whole collective audience before me, I will, in another two

minutes, release the hold which your favour has given me on your attention. Of the advantages of knowledge

I have said, and I shall say, nothing. Of the certainty with which the man who grasps it under difficulties rises

in his own respect and in usefulness to the community, I have said, and I shall say, nothing. In the city of

Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, both of them remarkable for selftaught men, that were superfluous

indeed. For the same reason I rigidly abstain from putting together any of the shattered fragments of that poor

clay image of a parrot, which was once always saying, without knowing why, or what it meant, that

knowledge was a dangerous thing. I should as soon think of piecing together the mutilated remains of any

wretched Hindoo who has been blown from an English gun. Both, creatures of the past, have been as my

friend Mr. Carlyle vigorously has it "blasted into space;" and there, as to this world, is an end of them.

So I desire, in conclusion, only to sound two strings. In the first place, let me congratulate you upon the

progress which real mutual improvement societies are making at this time in your neighbourhood, through

the noble agency of individual employers and their families, whom you can never too much delight to

honour. Elsewhere, through the agency of the great railway companies, some of which are bestirring

themselves in this matter with a gallantry and generosity deserving of all praise. Secondly and lastly, let me

say one word out of my own personal heart, which is always very near to it in this connexion. Do not let us,

in the midst of the visible objects of nature, whose workings we can tell of in figures, surrounded by

machines that can be made to the thousandth part of an inch, acquiring every day knowledge which can be

proved upon a slate or demonstrated by a microscope do not let us, in the laudable pursuit of the facts that

surround us, neglect the fancy and the imagination which equally surround us as a part of the great scheme.

Let the child have its fables; let the man or woman into which it changes, always remember those fables

tenderly. Let numerous graces and ornaments that cannot be weighed and measured, and that seem at first

sight idle enough, continue to have their places about us, be we never so wise. The hardest head may coexist

with the softest heart. The union and just balance of those two is always a blessing to the possessor, and

always a blessing to mankind. The Divine Teacher was as gentle and considerate as He was powerful and

wise. You all know how He could still the raging of the sea, and could hush a little child. As the utmost

results of the wisdom of men can only be at last to help to raise this earth to that condition to which His

doctrine, untainted by the blindnesses and passions of men, would have exalted it long ago; so let us always

remember that He set us the example of blending the understanding and the imagination, and that, following

it ourselves, we tread in His steps, and help our race on to its better and best days. Knowledge, as all

followers of it must know, has a very limited power indeed, when it informs the head alone; but when it

informs the head and the heart too, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates

[On the above evening, a public dinner was held at the Castle Hotel, on the occasion of the presentation to

Mr. Charles Dickens of a gold watch, as a mark of gratitude for the reading of his Christmas Carol, given in

December of the previous year, in aid of the funds of the Coventry Institute. The chair was taken by C. W.

MR. CHAIRMAN, Mr. Vicechairman, and Gentlemen, I hope your minds will be greatly relieved by my

assuring you that it is one of the rules of my life never to make a speech about myself. If I knowingly did so,

under any circumstances, it would be least of all under such circumstances as these, when its effect on my

acknowledgment of your kind regard, and this pleasant proof of it, would be to give me a certain constrained

air, which I fear would contrast badly with your greeting, so cordial, so unaffected, so earnest, and so true.

Furthermore, your Chairman has decorated the occasion with a little garland of good sense, good feeling, and

good taste; so that I am sure that any attempt at additional ornament would be almost an impertinence.

Therefore I will at once say how earnestly, how fervently, and how deeply I feel your kindness. This watch,

with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in my hours of sedentary working at home, and in

my wanderings abroad. It shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours of my future

days; and I can assure you that after this night the object of those labours will not less than before be to

uphold the right and to do good. And when I have done with time and its measurement, this watch shall

belong to my children; and as I have seven boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various

ways, or to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only possible, but probable, that this little

voice will be heard scores of years hence, who knows? in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of Australia,

Once again, and finally, I thank you; and from my heart of hearts, I can assure you that the memory of

tonight, and of your picturesque and interesting city, will never be absent from my mind, and I can never

more hear the lightest mention of the name of Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of

[Later in the evening, in proposing the health of the Chairman, Mr. Dickens said:]

THERE may be a great variety of conflicting opinions with regard to farming, and especially with reference

to the management of a clay farm; but, however various opinions as to the merits of a clay farm may be, there

can be but one opinion as to the merits of a clay farmer, and it is the health of that distinguished

In my ignorance of the subject, I am bound to say that it may be, for anything I know, indeed I am ready to

admit that it IS, exceedingly important that a clay farm should go for a number of years to waste; but I claim

some knowledge as to the management of a clay farmer, and I positively object to his ever lying fallow. In

the hope that this very rich and teeming individual may speedily be ploughed up, and that, we shall gather

into our barns and store houses the admirable crop of wisdom, which must spring up when ever he is sown,

I take leave to propose his health, begging to assure him that the kind manner in which he offered to me your

[At a Dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, the following Address was delivered by Mr.

SEVEN or eight years ago, without the smallest expectation of ever being called upon to fill the chair at an

anniversary festival of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, and without the remotest reference to such

an occasion, I selected the administration of that Charity as the model on which I desired that another should

be reformed, both as regarded the mode in which the relief was afforded, and the singular economy with

which its funds were administered. As a proof of the latter quality during the past year, the cost of distributing

1,126 pounds among the recipients of the bounty of the Charity amounted to little more than 100 pounds,

inclusive of all office charges and expenses. The experience and knowledge of those entrusted with the

management of the funds are a guarantee that the last available farthing of the funds will be distributed

among proper and deserving recipients. Claiming, on my part, to be related in some degree to the profession

of an artist, I disdain to stoop to ask for charity, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, on behalf of the

Artists. In its broader and higher signification of generous confidence, lasting trustfulness, love and confiding

belief, I very readily associate that cardinal virtue with art. I decline to present the artist to the notice of the

public as a grownup child, or as a strange, unaccountable, moonstricken person, waiting helplessly in the

street of life to be helped over the road by the crossing sweeper; on the contrary, I present the artist as a

reasonable creature, a sensible gentleman, and as one well acquainted with the value of his time, and that of

other people, as if he were in the habit of going on high 'Change every day. The Artist whom I wish to

present to the notice of the Meeting is one to whom the perfect enjoyment of the five senses is essential to

every achievement of his life. He can gain no wealth nor fame by buying something which he never touched,

and selling it to another who would also never touch or see it, but was compelled to strike out for himself

every spark of fire which lighted, burned, and perhaps consumed him. He must win the battle of life with his

own hand, and with his own eyes, and was obliged to act as general, captain, ensign, non commissioned

officer, private, drummer, great arms, small arms, infantry, cavalry, all in his own unaided self. When,

therefore, I ask help for the artist, I do not make my appeal for one who was a cripple from his birth, but I ask

it as part payment of a great debt which all sensible and civilised creatures owe to art, as a mark of respect to

art, as a decoration not as a badge as a remembrance of what this land, or any land, would be without art,

and as the token of an appreciation of the works of the most successful artists of this country. With respect to

the society of which I am the advocate, I am gratified that it is so liberally supported by the most

distinguished artists, and that it has the confidence of men who occupy the highest rank as artists, above the

reach of reverses, and the most distinguished in success and fame, and whose support is above all price.

Artists who have obtained wideworld reputation know well that many deserving and persevering men, or

their widows and orphans, have received help from this fund, and some of the artists who have received this

[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens, in his capacity as chairman, at the annual Festival of the

Newsvendors' and Provident Institution, held at the Freemasons' Tavern on the above date.]

WHEN I had the honour of being asked to preside last year, I was prevented by indisposition, and I besought

my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, to reign in my stead. He very kindly complied, and made an excellent speech.

Now I tell you the truth, that I read that speech with considerable uneasiness, for it inspired me with a strong

misgiving that I had better have presided last year with neuralgia in my face and my subject in my head,

rather than preside this year with my neuralgia all gone and my subject anticipated. Therefore, I wish to

preface the toast this evening by making the managers of this Institution one very solemn and repentant

promise, and it is, if ever I find myself obliged to provide a substitute again, they may rely upon my sending

The Chairman last year presented you with an amiable view of the universality of the newsman's calling.

Nothing, I think, is left for me but to imagine the newsman's burden itself, to unfold one of those wonderful

sheets which he every day disseminates, and to take a bird'seye view of its general character and contents.

So, if you please, choosing my own time though the newsman cannot choose his time, for he must be

equally active in winter or summer, in sunshine or sleet, in light or darkness, early or late but, choosing my

own time, I shall for two or three moments start off with the newsman on a fine May morning, and take a

view of the wonderful broadsheets which every day he scatters broadcast over the country. Well, the first

thing that occurs to me following the newsman is, that every day we are born, that every day we are married

some of us and that every day we are dead; consequently, the first thing the newsvendor's column

informs me is, that Atkins has been born, that Catkins has been married, and that Datkins is dead. But the

most remarkable thing I immediately discover in the next column, is that Atkins has grown to be seventeen

years old, and that he has run away; for, at last, my eye lights on the fact that William A., who is seventeen

years old, is adjured immediately to return to his disconsolate parents, and everything will be arranged to the

satisfaction of everyone. I am afraid he will never return, simply because, if he had meant to come back, he

would never have gone away. Immediately below, I find a mysterious character in such a mysterious

difficulty that it is only to be expressed by several disjointed letters, by several figures, and several stars; and

then I find the explanation in the intimation that the writer has given his property over to his uncle, and that

the elephant is on the wing. Then, still glancing over the shoulder of my industrious friend, the newsman, I

find there are great fleets of ships bound to all parts of the earth, that they all want a little more stowage, a

little more cargo, that they have a few more berths to let, that they have all the most spacious decks, that they

are all built of teak, and copper bottomed, that they all carry surgeons of experience, and that they are all A1

at Lloyds', and anywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my friend the newsman, I find I am offered

all kinds of houselodging, clerks, servants, and situations, which I can possibly or impossibly want. I learn,

to my intense gratification, that I need never grow old, that I may always preserve the juvenile bloom of my

complexion; that if ever I turn ill it is entirely my own fault; that if I have any complaint, and want brown

codliver oil or Turkish baths, I am told where to get them, and that, if I want an income of seven pounds

aweek, I may have it by sending halfacrown in postagestamps. Then I look to the police intelligence,

and I can discover that I may bite off a human living nose cheaply, but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a

calf from a shopwindow, it will cost me exceedingly dear. I also find that if I allow myself to be betrayed

into the folly of killing an inoffensive tradesman on his own doorstep, that little incident will not affect the

testimonials to my character, but that I shall be described as a most amiable young man, and as, above all

things, remarkable for the singular inoffensiveness of my character and disposition. Then I turn my eye to the

Fine Arts, and, under that head, I see that a certain "J. O." has most triumphantly exposed a certain "J. O. B.,"

which "J. O. B." was remarkable for this particular ugly feature, that I was requested to deprive myself of the

best of my pictures for six months; that for that time it was to be hung on a wet wall, and that I was to be

requited for my courtesy in having my picture most impertinently covered with a wet blanket. To sum up the

results of a glance over my newsman's shoulder, it gives a comprehensive knowledge of what is going on

over the continent of Europe, and also of what is going on over the continent of America, to say nothing of

Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman's shoulders from the whimsical point of view, which is

the point, I believe, that most promotes digestion. The newsman is to be met with on steamboats, railway

stations, and at every turn. His profits are small, he has a great amount of anxiety and care, and no little

amount of personal wear and tear. He is indispensable to civilization and freedom, and he is looked for with

pleasurable excitement every day, except when he lends the paper for an hour, and when he is punctual in

calling for it, which is sometimes very painful. I think the lesson we can learn from our newsman is some

new illustration of the uncertainty of life, some illustration of its vicissitudes and fluctuations. Mindful of this

permanent lesson, some members of the trade originated this society, which affords them assistance in time

of sickness and indigence. The subscription is infinitesimal. It amounts annually to five shillings. Looking at

the returns before me, the progress of the society would seem to be slow, but it has only been slow for the

best of all reasons, that it has been sure. The pensions granted are all obtained from the interest on the funded

capital, and, therefore, the Institution is literally as safe as the Bank. It is stated that there are several

newsvendors who are not members of this society; but that is true in all institutions which have come under

my experience. The persons who are most likely to stand in need of the benefits which an institution confers,

are usually the persons to keep away until bitter experience comes to them too late.

[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Adelphi Theatre, at a public meeting, for the purpose of

founding the Shakespeare Schools, in connexion with the Royal Dramatic College, and delivered the

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Fortunately for me, and fortunately for you, it is the duty of the Chairman

on an occasion of this nature, to be very careful that he does not anticipate those speakers who come after

him. Like Falstaff, with a considerable difference, he has to be the cause of speaking in others. It is rather his

duty to sit and hear speeches with exemplary attention than to stand up to make them; so I shall confine

myself, in opening these proceedings as your business official, to as plain and as short an exposition as I can

First of all I will take leave to remark that we do not come together in commemoration of Shakespeare. We

have nothing to do with any commemoration, except that we are of course humble worshippers of that mighty

genius, and that we propose byandby to take his name, but by no means to take it in vain. If, however, the

Tercentenary celebration were a hundred years hence, or a hundred years past, we should still be pursuing

precisely the same object, though we should not pursue it under precisely the same circumstances. The facts

are these: There is, as you know, in existence an admirable institution called the Royal Dramatic College,

which is a place of honourable rest and repose for veterans in the dramatic art. The charter of this college,

which dates some five or six years back, expressly provides for the establishment of schools in connexion

with it; and I may venture to add that this feature of the scheme, when it was explained to him, was specially

interesting to his Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, who hailed it as evidence of the desire of the

promoters to look forward as well as to look back; to found educational institutions for the rising generation,

as well as to establish a harbour of refuge for the generation going out, or at least having their faces turned

towards the setting sun. The leading members of the dramatic art, applying themselves first to the more

pressing necessity of the two, set themselves to work on the construction of their harbour of refuge, and this

they did with the zeal, energy, goodwill, and good faith that always honourably distinguish them in their

efforts to help one another. Those efforts were very powerfully aided by the respected gentleman under

whose roof we are assembled, and who, I hope, may be only half as glad of seeing me on these boards as I

always am to see him here. With such energy and determination did Mr. Webster and his brothers and sisters

in art proceed with their work, that at this present time all the dwellinghouses of the Royal Dramatic

College are built, completely furnished, fitted with every appliance, and many of them inhabited. The central

hall of the College is built, the grounds are beautifully planned and laid out, and the estate has become the

nucleus of a prosperous neighbourhood. This much achieved, Mr. Webster was revolving in his mind how he

should next proceed towards the establishment of the schools, when, this Tercentenary celebration being in

hand, it occurred to him to represent to the National Shakespeare Committee their just and reasonable claim

to participate in the results of any subscription for a monument to Shakespeare. He represented to the

committee that the social recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare's own art, through the

education of their children, was surely a monument worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the

committee that it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public good sense would immediately

appreciate and approve. This claim the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to

understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if the Tercentenary celebration had never been

attempted, those schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited public support.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact, to find a new selfsupporting public school;

with this additional feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of course, presupposes two separate

distinct schools. As these schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College, there will be

from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of any kind under that important head. It is, in short,

proposed simply to establish a new selfsupporting public school, in a rapidly increasing neighbourhood,

where there is a large and fast accumulating middleclass population, and where property in land is fast

rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project of the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the

schools are to be built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their schools the great name of

Shakespeare, and evermore to give the followers of Shakespeare's art a prominent place in them. With this

view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars

say, twenty girls and twenty boys who shall always receive their education gratuitously, and who shall

always be the children of actors, actresses, or dramatic writers. This school, you will understand, is to be

equal to the best existing public school. It is to be made to impart a sound, liberal, comprehensive education,

and it is to address the whole great middle class at least as freely, as widely, and as cheaply as any existing

Broadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is the whole design. There are foundation scholars at Eton, foundation

scholars at nearly all our old schools, and if the public, in remembrance of a noble part of our standard

national literature, and in remembrance of a great humanising art, will do this thing for these children, it will

at the same time be doing a wise and good thing for itself, and will unquestionably find its account in it.

Taking this view of the case and I cannot be satisfied to take any lower one I cannot make a sorry face

about "the poor player." I think it is a term very much misused and very little understood being, I venture to

say, appropriated in a wrong sense by players themselves. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I can only present

the player to you exceptionally in this wise that he follows a peculiar and precarious vocation, a vocation

very rarely affording the means of accumulating money that that vocation must, from the nature of things,

have in it many undistinguished men and women to one distinguished one that it is not a vocation the

exerciser of which can profit by the labours of others, but in which he must earn every loaf of his bread in his

own person, with the aid of his own face, his own limbs, his own voice, his own memory, and his own life

and spirits; and these failing, he fails. Surely this is reason enough to render him some little help in opening

for his children their paths through life. I say their paths advisedly, because it is not often found, except under

the pressure of necessity, or where there is strong hereditary talent which is always an exceptional case

that the children of actors and actresses take to the stage. Persons therefore need not in the least fear that by

helping to endow these schools they would help to overstock the dramatic market. They would do directly the

reverse, for they would divert into channels of public distinction and usefulness those good qualities which

This project has received the support of the head of the most popular of our English public schools. On the

committee stands the name of that eminent scholar and gentleman, the Provost of Eton. You justly admire

this liberal spirit, and your admiration which I cordially share brings me naturally to what I wish to say,

that I believe there is not in England any institution so socially liberal as a public school. It has been called a

little cosmos of life outside, and I think it is so, with the exception of one of life's worst foibles for, as far as

I know, nowhere in this country is there so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, to mere position, to

mere riches as in a public school. A boy there is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him.

We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit

preserved in our public schools, I apprehend there can be no kind of question. It has happened in these later

times that objection has been made to children of dramatic artists in certain little snivelling private schools

but in public schools never. Therefore, I hold that the actors are wise, and gratefully wise, in recognizing the

capacious liberality of a public school, in seeking not a little holeand corner place of education for their

children exclusively, but in addressing the whole of the great middle class, and proposing to them to come

and join them, the actors, on their own property, in a public school, in a part of the country where no such

I have now done. The attempt has been a very timid one. I have endeavoured to confine myself within my

means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I

have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view,

and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees

his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall

lay a strong foundation of these schools today, I will call, as the mover of the first resolution, on Mr. Robert

[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Annual Festival of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and

Provident Association, and, in proposing the toast of the evening, delivered the following speech.]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Dr. Johnson's experience of that club, the members of which have travelled

over one another's minds in every direction, is not to be compared with the experience of the perpetual

president of a society like this. Having on previous occasions said everything about it that he could possibly

find to say, he is again produced, with the same awful formalities, to say everything about it that he cannot

possibly find to say. It struck me, when Dr. F. Jones was referring just now to Easter Monday, that the case of

such an illstarred president is very like that of the stag at Epping Forest on Easter Monday. That unfortunate

animal when he is uncarted at the spot where the meet takes place, generally makes a point, I am told, of

making away at a cool trot, venturesomely followed by the whole field, to the yard where he lives, and there

subsides into a quiet and inoffensive existence, until he is again brought out to be again followed by exactly

The difficulties of the situation and here I mean the president and not the stag are greatly increased in

such an instance as this by the peculiar nature of the institution. In its unpretending solidity, reality, and

usefulness, believe me for I have carefully considered the point it presents no opening whatever of an

oratorical nature. If it were one of those costly charities, so called, whose yield of wool bears no sort of

proportion to their cry for cash, I very likely might have a word or two to say on the subject. If its funds were

lavished in patronage and show, instead of being honestly expended in providing small annuities for

hardworking people who have themselves contributed to its funds if its management were intrusted to

people who could by no possibility know anything about it, instead of being invested in plain, business,

practical hands if it hoarded when it ought to spend if it got by cringing and fawning what it never

deserved, I might possibly impress you very much by my indignation. If its managers could tell me that it

was insolvent, that it was in a hopeless condition, that its accounts had been kept by Mr. Edmunds or by

"Tom," if its treasurer had run away with the moneybox, then I might have made a pathetic appeal to your

feelings. But I have no such chance. Just as a nation is happy whose records are barren, so is a society

fortunate that has no history and its president unfortunate. I can only assure you that this society continues

its plain, unobtrusive, useful career. I can only assure you that it does a great deal of good at a very small

cost, and that the objects of its care and the bulk of its members are faithful working servants of the public

sole ministers of their wants at untimely hours, in all seasons, and in all weathers; at their own doors, at the

streetcorners, at every railway train, at every steamboat; through the agency of every establishment and the

tiniest little shops; and that, whether regarded as master or as man, their profits are very modest and their

The newsvendors and newsmen are a very subordinate part of that wonderful engine the newspaper press.

Still I think we all know very well that they are to the fountainhead what a good service of water pipes is to

a good water supply. Just as a goodly store of water at Watford would be a tantalization to thirsty London if it

were not brought into town for its use, so any amount of news accumulated at Printinghouse Square, or

Fleet Street, or the Strand, would be if there were no skill and enterprise engaged in its dissemination.

We are all of us in the habit of saying in our everyday life, that "We never know the value of anything until

we lose it." Let us try the newsvendors by the test. A few years ago we discovered one morning that there

was a strike among the cabdrivers. Now, let us imagine a strike of newsmen. Imagine the trains waiting in

vain for the newspapers. Imagine all sorts and conditions of men dying to know the shipping news, the

commercial news, the foreign news, the legal news, the criminal news, the dramatic news. Imagine the

paralysis on all the provincial exchanges; the silence and desertion of all the newsmen's exchanges in

London. Imagine the circulation of the blood of the nation and of the country standing still, the clock of the

world. Why, even Mr. Reuter, the great Reuter whom I am always glad to imagine slumbering at night by

the side of Mrs. Reuter, with a galvanic battery under his bolster, bell and wires to the head of his bed, and

bells at each ear think how even he would click and flash those wondrous dispatches of his, and how they

would become mere nothing without the activity and honesty which catch up the threads and stitches of the

It is curious to consider and the thought occurred to me this day, when I was out for a stroll pondering over

the duties of this evening, which even then were looming in the distance, but not quite so far off as I could

wish I found it very curious to consider that though the newsman must be allowed to be a very

unpicturesque rendering of Mercury, or Fame, or whatnot conventional messenger from the clouds, and

although we must allow that he is of this earth, and has a good deal of it on his boots, still that he has two

very remarkable characteristics, to which none of his celestial predecessors can lay the slightest claim. One is

that he is always the messenger of civilization; the other that he is at least equally so not only in what he

brings, but in what he ceases to bring. Thus the time was, and not so many years ago either, when the

newsman constantly brought home to our doors though I am afraid not to our hearts, which were

customhardened the most terrific accounts of murders, of our fellowcreatures being publicly put to death

for what we now call trivial offences, in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. At the

same time the newsman regularly brought to us the infliction of other punishments, which were demoralising

to the innocent part of the community, while they did not operate as punishments in deterring offenders from

the perpetration of crimes. In those same days, also, the newsman brought to us daily accounts of a regularly

accepted and received system of loading the unfortunate insane with chains, littering them down on straw,

starving them on bread and water, damaging their clothes, and making periodical exhibitions of them at a

small charge; and that on a Sunday one of our public resorts was a kind of demoniacal zoological gardens.

They brought us accounts at the same time of some damage done to the machinery which was destined to

supply the operative classes with employment. In the same time they brought us accounts of riots for bread,

which were constantly occurring, and undermining society and the state; of the most terrible explosions of

class against class, and of the habitual employment of spies for the discovery if not for the origination of

plots, in which both sides found in those days some relief. In the same time the same newsmen were

apprising us of a state of society all around us in which the grossest sensuality and intemperance were the

rule; and not as now, when the ignorant, the wicked, and the wretched are the inexcusably vicious exceptions

a state of society in which the professional bully was rampant, and when deadly duels were daily fought for

the most absurd and disgraceful causes. All this the newsman has ceased to tell us of. This state of society has

discontinued in England for ever; and when we remember the undoubted truth, that the change could never

have been effected without the aid of the load which the newsman carries, surely it is not very romantic to

express the hope on his behalf that the public will show to him some little token of the sympathetic

remembrance which we are all of us glad to bestow on the bearers of happy tidings the harbingers of good

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will be glad to hear that I am coming to a conclusion; for that conclusion I

have a precedent. You all of you know how pleased you are on your return from a morning's walk to learn

that the collector has called. Well, I am the collector for this district, and I hope you will bear in mind that I

have respectfully called. Regarding the institution on whose behalf I have presented myself, I need only say

technically two things. First, that its annuities are granted out of its funded capital, and therefore it is safe as

the Bank; and, secondly, that they are attainable by such a slight exercise of prudence and forethought, that

a payment of 25S. extending over a period of five years, entitles a subscriber if a male to an annuity of 16

pounds ayear, and a female to 12 pounds ayear. Now, bear in mind that this is an institution on behalf of

which the collector has called, leaving behind his assurance that what you can give to one of the most faithful

of your servants shall be well bestowed and faithfully applied to the purposes to which you intend them, and

[At the second annual dinner of the Institution, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, on Saturday, the 20th May,

1865, the following speech was delivered by the chairman, Mr. Charles Dickens, in proposing the toast of the

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, When a young child is produced after dinner to be shown to a circle of

admiring relations and friends, it may generally be observed that their conversation I suppose in an

instinctive remembrance of the uncertainty of infant life takes a retrospective turn. As how much the child

has grown since the last dinner; what a remarkably fine child it is, to have been born only two or three years

ago, how much stronger it looks now than before it had the measles, and so forth. When a young institution is

produced after dinner, there is not the same uncertainty or delicacy as in the case of the child, and it may be

confidently predicted of it that if it deserve to live it will surely live, and that if it deserve to die it will surely

die. The proof of desert in such a case as this must be mainly sought, I suppose, firstly, in what the society

means to do with its money; secondly, in the extent to which it is supported by the class with whom it

originated, and for whose benefit it is designed; and, lastly, in the power of its hold upon the public. I add this

lastly, because no such institution that ever I heard of ever yet dreamed of existing apart from the public, or

Now, what the Newspaper Press Fund proposes to do with its money is to grant relief to members in want or

distress, and to the widows, families, parents, or other near relatives of deceased members in right of a

moderate provident annual subscription commutable, I observe, for a moderate provident life subscription

and its members comprise the whole paid class of literary contributors to the press of the United Kingdom,

and every class of reporters. The number of its members at this time last year was something below 100. At

the present time it is somewhat above 170, not including 30 members of the press who are regular

subscribers, but have not as yet qualified as regular members. This number is steadily on the increase, not

only as regards the metropolitan press, but also as regards the provincial throughout the country. I have

observed within these few days that many members of the press at Manchester have lately at a meeting

expressed a strong brotherly interest in this Institution, and a great desire to extend its operations, and to

strengthen its hands, provided that something in the independent nature of life assurance and the purchase of

deferred annuities could be introduced into its details, and always assuming that in it the metropolis and the

provinces stand on perfectly equal ground. This appears to me to be a demand so very moderate, that I can

hardly have a doubt of a response on the part of the managers, or of the beneficial and harmonious results. It

only remains to add, on this head of desert, the agreeable circumstance that out of all the money collected in

aid of the society during the last year more than onethird came exclusively from the press.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to the last claim the last point of desert the hold upon the public I

think I may say that probably not one single individual in this great company has failed today to see a

newspaper, or has failed today to hear something derived from a newspaper which was quite unknown to

him or to her yesterday. Of all those restless crowds that have this day thronged the streets of this enormous

city, the same may be said as the general gigantic rule. It may be said almost equally, of the brightest and the

dullest, the largest and the least provincial town in the empire; and this, observe, not only as to the active, the

industrious, and the healthy among the population, but also to the bedridden, the idle, the blind, and the deaf

and dumb. Now, if the men who provide this allpervading presence, this wonderful, ubiquitous newspaper,

with every description of intelligence on every subject of human interest, collected with immense pains and

immense patience, often by the exercise of a laboriouslyacquired faculty united to a natural aptitude, much

of the work done in the night, at the sacrifice of rest and sleep, and (quite apart from the mental strain) by the

constant overtasking of the two most delicate of the senses, sight and hearing I say, if the men who, through

the newspapers, from day to day, or from night to night, or from week to week, furnish the public with so

much to remember, have not a righteous claim to be remembered by the public in return, then I declare before

It would be absurd, it would be impertinent, in such an assembly as this, if I were to attempt to expatiate upon

the extraordinary combination of remarkable qualities involved in the production of any newspaper. But

assuming the majority of this associated body to be composed of reporters, because reporters, of one kind or

other, compose the majority of the literary staff of almost every newspaper that is not a compilation, I would

venture to remind you, if I delicately may, in the august presence of members of Parliament, how much we,

the public, owe to the reporters if it were only for their skill in the two great sciences of condensation and

rejection. Conceive what our sufferings, under an Imperial Parliament, however popularly constituted, under

however glorious a constitution, would be if the reporters could not skip. Dr. Johnson, in one of his violent

assertions, declared that "the man who was afraid of anything must be a scoundrel, sir." By no means binding

myself to this opinion though admitting that the man who is afraid of a newspaper will generally be found

to be rather something like it, I must still freely own that I should approach my Parliamentary debate with

infinite fear and trembling if it were so unskilfully served up for my breakfast. Ever since the time when the

old man and his son took their donkey home, which were the old Greek days, I believe, and probably ever

since the time when the donkey went into the ark perhaps he did not like his accommodation there but

certainly from that time downwards, he has objected to go in any direction required of him from the

I do not for a moment seek to conceal that I know this Institution has been objected to. As an open fact

challenging the freest discussion and inquiry, and seeking no sort of shelter or favour but what it can win, it

has nothing, I apprehend, but itself, to urge against objection. No institution conceived in perfect honesty and

good faith has a right to object to being questioned to any extent, and any institution so based must be in the

end the better for it. Moreover, that this society has been questioned in quarters deserving of the most

respectful attention I take to be an indisputable fact. Now, I for one have given that respectful attention, and I

have come out of the discussion to where you see me. The whole circle of the arts is pervaded by institutions

between which and this I can descry no difference. The painters' art has four or five such institutions. The

musicians' art, so generously and charmingly represented here, has likewise several such institutions. In my

own art there is one, concerning the details of which my noble friend the president of the society and myself

have torn each other's hair to a considerable extent, and which I would, if I could, assimilate more nearly to

this. In the dramatic art there are four, and I never yet heard of any objection to their principle, except,

indeed, in the cases of some famous actors of large gains, who having through the whole period of their

successes positively refused to establish a right in them, became, in their old age and decline, repentant

suppliants for their bounty. Is it urged against this particular Institution that it is objectionable because a

parliamentary reporter, for instance, might report a subscribing M.P. in large, and a nonsubscribing M.P. in

little? Apart from the sweeping nature of this charge, which, it is to be observed, lays the unfortunate member

and the unfortunate reporter under pretty much the same suspicion apart from this consideration, I reply

that it is notorious in all newspaper offices that every such man is reported according to the position he can

gain in the public eye, and according to the force and weight of what he has to say. And if there were ever to

be among the members of this society one so very foolish to his brethren, and so very dishonourable to

himself, as venally to abuse his trust, I confidently ask those here, the best acquainted with journalism,

whether they believe it possible that any newspaper so illconducted as to fail instantly to detect him could

possibly exist as a thriving enterprise for one single twelvemonth? No, ladies and gentlemen, the blundering

stupidity of such an offence would have no chance against the acute sagacity of newspaper editors. But I will

go further, and submit to you that its commission, if it be to be dreaded at all, is far more likely on the part of

some recreant campfollower of a scattered, disunited, and halfrecognized profession, than when there is a

public opinion established in it, by the union of all classes of its members for the common good: the tendency

of which union must in the nature of things be to raise the lower members of the press towards the higher,

I hope I may be allowed in the very few closing words that I feel a desire to say in remembrance of some

circumstances, rather special, attending my present occupation of this chair, to give those words something of

a personal tone. I am not here advocating the case of a mere ordinary client of whom I have little or no

knowledge. I hold a brief tonight for my brothers. I went into the gallery of the House of Commons as a

parliamentary reporter when I was a boy not eighteen, and I left it I can hardly believe the inexorable truth

nigh thirty years ago. I have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my

brethren at home in England here, many of my modern successors, can form no adequate conception. I have

often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches in which the strictest

accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man severely compromising,

writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a postchaise and four, galloping through a

wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very

last time I was at Exeter, I strolled into the castle yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the

spot on which I once "took," as we used to call it, an election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the

midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such a pelting

rain, that I remember two goodnatured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pockethandkerchief

over my notebook, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees

by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my

feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used to be huddled

together like so many sheep kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want restuffing. Returning

home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, I do verily believe I have

been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. I have been, in my time, belated on

miry byroads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a wheelless carriage, with

exhausted horses and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with

neverforgotten compliments by the late Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of

Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an assurance to you that I never have forgotten the

fascination of that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has

never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I took to it, or acquired in it, I have so

retained as that I fully believe I could resume it tomorrow, very little the worse from long disuse. To this

present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech, the phenomenon does

occur I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, old way;

and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find my hand going on the tablecloth, taking an imaginary

note of it all. Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what I know; as a confirmation of my undying

interest in this old calling. Accept them as a proof that my feeling for the location of my youth is not a

sentiment taken up tonight to be thrown away tomorrow but is a faithful sympathy which is a part of

myself. I verily believe I am sure that if I had never quitted my old calling I should have been foremost

and zealous in the interests of this Institution, believing it to be a sound, a wholesome, and a good one. Ladies

and gentlemen, I am to propose to you to drink "Prosperity to the Newspaper Press Fund," with which toast I

will connect, as to its acknowledgment, a name that has shed new brilliancy on even the foremost newspaper

[On the above date the members of the "Guild of Literature and Art" proceeded to the neighbourhood of

Stevenage, near the magnificent seat of the President, Lord Lytton, to inspect three houses built in the Gothic

style, on the ground given by him for the purpose. After their survey, the party drove to Knebworth to partake

of the hospitality of Lord Lytton. Mr. Dickens, who was one of the guests, proposed the health of the host in

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, It was said by a very sagacious person, whose authority I am sure my friend

of many years will not impugn, seeing that he was named Augustus Tomlinson, the kind friend and

philosopher of Paul Clifford it was said by that remarkable man, "Life is short, and why should speeches be

long?" An aphorism so sensible under all circumstances, and particularly in the circumstances in which we

are placed, with this delicious weather and such charming gardens near us, I shall practically adopt on the

present occasion; and the rather so because the speech of my friend was exhaustive of the subject, as his

speeches always are, though not in the least exhaustive of his audience. In thanking him for the toast which

he has done us the honour to propose, allow me to correct an error into which he has fallen. Allow me to state

that these houses never could have been built but for his zealous and valuable cooperation, and also that the

pleasant labour out of which they have arisen would have lost one of its greatest charms and strongest

impulses, if it had lost his ever ready sympathy with that class in which he has risen to the foremost rank, and

Having said this much as simply due to my friend, I can only say, on behalf of my associates, that the ladies

and gentlemen whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will never be placed under any

social disadvantage. They will be invited to occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of the high

respect in which they are held by their fellowworkers. As artists I hope they will often exercise their calling

within those walls for the general advantage; and they will always claim, on equal terms, the hospitality of

Now I am sure I shall be giving utterance to the feelings of my brothers and sisters in literature in proposing

"Health, long life, and prosperity to our distinguished host." Ladies and gentlemen, you know very well that

when the health, life, and beauty now overflowing these halls shall have fled, crowds of people will come to

see the place where he lived and wrote. Setting aside the orator and statesman for happily we know no

party here but this agreeable party setting aside all, this you know very well, that this is the home of a very

great man whose connexion with Hertfordshire every other county in England will envy for many long years

to come. You know that when this hall is dullest and emptiest you can make it when you please brightest and

fullest by peopling it with the creations of his brilliant fancy. Let us all wish together that they may be many

more for the more they are the better it will be, and, as he always excels himself, the better they will be. I

ask you to listen to their praises and not to mine, and to let them, not me, propose his health.

[On this occasion Mr. Dickens officiated as Chairman at the annual dinner of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and

LADIES, before I couple you with the gentlemen, which will be at least proper to the inscription over my

head (St. Valentine's day) before I do so, allow me, on behalf of my grateful sex here represented, to thank

you for the great pleasure and interest with which your gracious presence at these festivals never fails to

inspire us. There is no English custom which is so manifestly a relic of savage life as that custom which

usually excludes you from participation in similar gatherings. And although the crime carries its own heavy

punishment along with it, in respect that it divests a public dinner of its most beautiful ornament and of its

most fascinating charm, still the offence is none the less to be severely reprehended on every possible

occasion, as outraging equally nature and art. I believe that as little is known of the saint whose name is

written here as can well be known of any saint or sinner. We, your loyal servants, are deeply thankful to him

for having somehow gained possession of one day in the year for having, as no doubt he has, arranged the

almanac for 1866 expressly to delight us with the enchanting fiction that we have some tender

proprietorship in you which we should scarcely dare to claim on a less auspicious occasion. Ladies, the

utmost devotion sanctioned by the saint we beg to lay at your feet, and any little innocent privileges to which

we may be entitled by the same authority we beg respectfully but firmly to claim at your hands.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, you need no ghost to inform you that I am going to propose "Prosperity to the

Dramatic, Musical, and Equestrian Sick Fund Association," and, further, that I should be going to ask you

actively to promote that prosperity by liberally contributing to its funds, if that task were not reserved for a

much more persuasive speaker. But I rest the strong claim of the society for its useful existence and its truly

charitable functions on a very few words, though, as well as I can recollect, upon something like six grounds.

First, it relieves the sick; secondly, it buries the dead; thirdly, it enables the poor members of the profession to

journey to accept new engagements whenever they find themselves stranded in some remote, inhospitable

place, or when, from other circumstances, they find themselves perfectly crippled as to locomotion for want

of money; fourthly, it often finds such engagements for them by acting as their honest, disinterested agent;

fifthly, it is its principle to act humanely upon the instant, and never, as is too often the case within my

experience, to beat about the bush till the bush is withered and dead; lastly, the society is not in the least

degree exclusive, but takes under its comprehensive care the whole range of the theatre and the

concertroom, from the manager in his room of state, or in his caravan, or at the drumhead down to the

theatrical housekeeper, who is usually to be found amongst the cobwebs and the flies, or down to the hall

porter, who passes his life in a thorough draught and, to the best of my observation, in perpetually

interrupted endeavours to eat something with a knife and fork out of a basin, by a dusty fire, in that

extraordinary little gritty room, upon which the sun never shines, and on the portals of which are inscribed

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this society administers its benefits sometimes by way of loan; sometimes by

way of gift; sometimes by way of assurance at very low premiums; sometimes to members, oftener to

nonmembers; always expressly, remember, through the hands of a secretary or committee well acquainted

with the wants of the applicants, and thoroughly versed, if not by hard experience at least by sympathy, in the

calamities and uncertainties incidental to the general calling. One must know something of the general calling

to know what those afflictions are. A lady who had been upon the stage from her earliest childhood till she

was a blooming woman, and who came from a long line of provincial actors and actresses, once said to me

when she was happily married; when she was rich, beloved, courted; when she was mistress of a fine house

once said to me at the head of her own table, surrounded by distinguished guests of every degree, "Oh, but I

have never forgotten the hard time when I was on the stage, and when my baby brother died, and when my

poor mother and I brought the little baby from Ireland to England, and acted three nights in England, as we

had acted three nights in Ireland, with the pretty creature lying upon the only bed in our lodging before we

Ladies and gentlemen, such things are, every day, to this hour; but, happily, at this day and in this hour this

It is not often the fault of the sufferers that they fall into these straits. Struggling artists must necessarily

change from place to place, and thus it frequently happens that they become, as it were, strangers in every

place, and very slight circumstances a passing illness, the sickness of the husband, wife, or child, a serious

town, an anathematising expounder of the gospel of gentleness and forbearance any one of these causes

may often in a few hours wreck them upon a rock in the barren ocean; and then, happily, this society, with the

swift alacrity of the lifeboat, dashes to the rescue, and takes them off. Looking just now over the last report

issued by this society, and confining my scrutiny to the head of illness alone, I find that in one year, I think,

672 days of sickness had been assuaged by its means. In nine years, which then formed the term of its

existence, as many as 5,500 and odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and odd days of sickness, this is a

very serious sum, but add the nights! Add the nights those long, dreary hours in the twentyfour when the

shadow of death is darkest, when despondency is strongest, and when hope is weakest, before you gauge the

good that is done by this institution, and before you gauge the good that really will be done by every shilling

that you bestow here tonight. Add, more than all, that the improvidence, the recklessness of the general

multitude of poor members of this profession, I should say is a cruel, conventional fable. Add that there is no

class of society the members of which so well help themselves, or so well help each other. Not in the whole

grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and York Minster, not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange,

not in the whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the Inns of Court, not in the College of

Physicians, not in the College of Surgeons, can there possibly be found more remarkable instances of

uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, constant selfdenial, of the generous remembrance of the claims of

kindred and professional brotherhood, than will certainly be found in the dingiest and dirtiest concert room,

in the least lucid theatre even in the raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by weather.

I have been twitted in print before now with rather flattering actors when I address them as one of their

trustees at their General Fund dinner. Believe me, I flatter nobody, unless it be sometimes myself; but, in

such a company as the present, I always feel it my manful duty to bear my testimony to this fact first,

because it is opposed to a stupid, unfeeling libel; secondly, because my doing so may afford some slight

encouragement to the persons who are unjustly depreciated; and lastly, and most of all, because I know it is

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time we should what we professionally call "ring down" on these remarks. If

you, such members of the general public as are here, will only think the great theatrical curtain has really

fallen and been taken up again for the night on that dull, dark vault which many of us know so well; if you

will only think of the theatre or other place of entertainment as empty; if you will only think of the "float," or

other gasfittings, as extinguished; if you will only think of the people who have beguiled you of an

evening's care, whose little vanities and almost childish foibles are engendered in their competing face to face

with you for your favour surely it may be said their feelings are partly of your making, while their virtues

are all their own. If you will only do this, and follow them out of that sham place into the real world, where it

rains real rain, snows real snow, and blows real wind; where people sustain themselves by real money, which

is much harder to get, much harder to make, and very much harder to give away than the pieces of

tobaccopipe in property bags if you will only do this, and do it in a really kind, considerate spirit, this

society, then certain of the result of the night's proceedings, can ask no more. I beg to propose to you to drink

Gentlemen: as I addressed myself to the ladies last time, so I address you this time, and I give you the

delightful assurance that it is positively my last appearance but one on the present occasion. A certain Mr.

Pepys, who was Secretary for the Admiralty in the days of Charles II., who kept a diary well in shorthand,

which he supposed no one could read, and which consequently remains to this day the most honest diary

known to print Mr. Pepys had two special and very strong likings, the ladies and the theatres. But Mr.

Pepys, whenever he committed any slight act of remissness, or any little peccadillo which was utterly and

wholly untheatrical, used to comfort his conscience by recording a vow that he would abstain from the

theatres for a certain time. In the first part of Mr. Pepys' character I have no doubt we fully agree with him; in

I learn this experience of Mr. Pepys from remembrance of a passage in his diary that I was reading the other

night, from which it appears that he was not only curious in plays, but curious in sermons; and that one night

when he happened to be walking past St. Dunstan's Church, he turned, went in, and heard what he calls "a

very edifying discourse;" during the delivery of which discourse, he notes in his diary "I stood by a pretty

young maid, whom I did attempt to take by the hand." But he adds "She would not; and I did perceive that

she had pins in her pocket with which to prick me if I should touch her again and was glad that I spied her

design." Afterwards, about the close of the same edifying discourse, Mr. Pepys found himself near another

pretty, fair young maid, who would seem upon the whole to have had no pins, and to have been more

Now, the moral of this story which I wish to suggest to you is, that we have been this evening in St. James's

much more timid than Mr. Pepys was in St. Dunstan's, and that we have conducted ourselves very much

better. As a slight recompense to us for our highly meritorious conduct, and as a little relief to our over

charged hearts, I beg to propose that we devote this bumper to invoking a blessing on the ladies. It is the

privilege of this society annually to hear a lady speak for her own sex. Who so competent to do this as Mrs.

Stirling? Surely one who has so gracefully and captivatingly, with such an exquisite mixture of art, and fancy,

and fidelity, represented her own sex in innumerable charities, under an infinite variety of phases, cannot fail

to represent them well in her own character, especially when it is, amidst her many triumphs, the most

agreeable of all. I beg to propose to you "The Ladies," and I will couple with that toast the name of Mrs.

[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Annual Festival of the Royal General Theatrical

Fund, held at the Freemasons' Tavern, in proposing the health of the Lord Mayor (Sir Benjamin Phillips),

GENTLEMEN, in my childish days I remember to have had a vague but profound admiration for a certain

legendary person called the Lord Mayor's fool. I had the highest opinion of the intellectual capacity of that

suppositious retainer of the Mansion House, and I really regarded him with feelings approaching to absolute

veneration, because my nurse informed me on every gastronomic occasion that the Lord Mayor's fool liked

everything that was good. You will agree with me, I have no doubt, that if this discriminating jester had

existed at the present time he could not fail to have liked his master very much, seeing that so good a Lord

Mayor is very rarely to be found, and that a better Lord Mayor could not possibly be.

You have already divined, gentlemen, that I am about to propose to you to drink the health of the right

honourable gentleman in the chair. As one of the Trustees of the General Theatrical Fund, I beg officially to

tender him my best thanks for lending the very powerful aid of his presence, his influence, and his personal

character to this very deserving Institution. As his private friends we ventured to urge upon him to do us this

gracious act, and I beg to assure you that the perfect simplicity, modesty, cordiality, and frankness with which

he assented, enhanced the gift one thousand fold. I think it must also be very agreeable to a company like this

to know that the President of the night is not ceremoniously pretending, "positively for this night only," to

have an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough acquaintance with it, and that he has a

living and discerning knowledge of the merits of the great old actors. It is very pleasant to me to remember

that the Lord Mayor and I once beguiled the tedium of a journey by exchanging our experiences upon this

subject. I rather prided myself on being something of an old stager, but I found the Lord Mayor so thoroughly

up in all the stock pieces, and so knowing and yet so fresh about the merits of those who are most and best

identified with them, that I readily recognised in him what would be called in fistic language, a very ugly

customer one, I assure you, by no means to be settled by any novice not in thorough good theatrical

Gentlemen, we have all known from our earliest infancy that when the giants in Guildhall hear the clock

strike one, they come down to dinner. Similarly, when the City of London shall hear but one single word in

just disparagement of its present Lord Mayor, whether as its enlightened chief magistrate, or as one of its

merchants, or as one of its true gentlemen, he will then descend from the high personal place which he holds

in the general honour and esteem. Until then he will remain upon his pedestal, and my private opinion,

Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would remark that when the Lord Mayor made his truly remarkable, and truly

manly, and unaffected speech, I could not but be struck by the odd reversal of the usual circumstances at the

Mansion House, which he presented to our view, for whereas it is a very common thing for persons to be

brought tremblingly before the Lord Mayor, the Lord Mayor presented himself as being brought tremblingly

before us. I hope that the result may hold still further, for whereas it is a common thing for the Lord Mayor to

say to a repentant criminal who does not seem to have much harm in him, "let me never see you here again,"

so I would propose that we all with one accord say to the Lord Mayor, "Let us by all means see you here

again on the first opportunity." Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink, with all the honours, "The health

[The Members of the Metropolitan Rowing Clubs dining together at the London Tavern, on the above date,

Mr. Dickens, as President of the Nautilus Rowing Club, occupied the chair. The Speech that follows was

made in proposing "Prosperity to the Rowing Clubs of London." Mr. Dickens said that:]

HE could not avoid the remembrance of what very poor things the amateur rowing clubs on the Thames were

in the early days of his noviciate; not to mention the difference in the build of the boats. He could not get on

in the beginning without being a pupil under an anomalous creature called a "fireman waterman," who wore

an eminently tall hat, and a perfectly unaccountable uniform, of which it might be said that if it was less

adapted for one thing than another, that thing was fire. He recollected that this gentleman had on some former

day won a King's prize wherry, and they used to go about in this accursed wherry, he and a partner, doing all

the hard work, while the fireman drank all the beer. The river was very much clearer, freer, and cleaner in

those days than these; but he was persuaded that this philosophical old boatman could no more have dreamt

of seeing the spectacle which had taken place on Saturday (the procession of the boats of the Metropolitan

Amateur Rowing Clubs), or of seeing these clubs matched for skill and speed, than he (the Chairman) should

dare to announce through the usual authentic channels that he was to be heard of at the bar below, and that he

was perfectly prepared to accommodate Mr. James Mace if he meant business. Nevertheless, he could

recollect that he had turned out for a spurt a few years ago on the River Thames with an occasional Secretary,

who should be nameless, and some other Eton boys, and that he could hold his own against them. More

recently still, the last time that he rowed down from Oxford he was supposed to cover himself with honour,

though he must admit that he found the "locks" so picturesque as to require much examination for the

discovery of their beauty. But what he wanted to say was this, that though his "fireman waterman" was one of

the greatest humbugs that ever existed, he yet taught him what an honest, healthy, manly sport this was. Their

waterman would bid them pull away, and assure them that they were certain of winning in some race. And

here he would remark that aquatic sports never entailed a moment's cruelty, or a moment's pain, upon any

living creature. Rowing men pursued recreation under circumstances which braced their muscles, and cleared

the cobwebs from their minds. He assured them that he regarded such clubs as these as a "national blessing."

They owed, it was true, a vast deal to steam power as was sometimes proved at matches on the Thames

but, at the same time, they were greatly indebted to all that tended to keep up a healthy, manly tone. He

understood that there had been a committee selected for the purpose of arranging a great amateur regatta,

which was to take place off Putney in the course of the season that was just begun. He could not abstain from

availing himself of this occasion to express a hope that the committee would successfully carry on its labours

to a triumphant result, and that they should see upon the Thames, in the course of this summer, such a

brilliant sight as had never been seen there before. To secure this there must be some hard work, skilful

combinations, and rather large subscriptions. But although the aggregate result must be great, it by no means

[In conclusion, Mr. Dickens made a laughable comparison between the paying off or purification of the

[On the above date Mr. Dickens presided at the Ninth Anniversary Festival of the Railway Benevolent

Society, at Willis's Rooms, and in proposing the toast of the evening, made the following speech.]

ALTHOUGH we have not yet left behind us by the distance of nearly fifty years the time when one of the

first literary authorities of this country insisted upon the speed of the fastest railway train that the Legisture

might disastrously sanction being limited by Act of Parliament to ten miles an hour, yet it does somehow

happen that this evening, and every evening, there are railway trains running pretty smoothly to Ireland and to

Scotland at the rate of fifty miles an hour; much as it was objected in its time to vaccination, that it must have

a tendency to impart to human children something of the nature of the cow, whereas I believe to this very

time vaccinated children are found to be as easily defined from calves as they ever were, and certainly they

have no cheapening influence on the price of veal; much as it was objected that chloroform was a

contravention of the will of Providence, because it lessened providentiallyinflicted pain, which would be a

reason for your not rubbing your face if you had the toothache, or not rubbing your nose if it itched; so it

was evidently predicted that the railway system, even if anything so absurd could be productive of any result,

would infallibly throw half the nation out of employment; whereas, you observe that the very cause and

occasion of our coming here together tonight is, apart from the various tributary channels of occupation

which it has opened out, that it has called into existence a specially and directly employed population of

Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of 200,000 persons engaged upon the various

railways of the United Kingdom cannot be rich; and although their duties require great care and great

exactness, and although our lives are every day, humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still, for

the most of these places there will be always great competition, because they are not posts which require

skilled workmen to hold. Wages, as you know very well, cannot be high where competition is great, and you

also know very well that railway directors, in the bargains they make, and the salaries which they pay, have

to deal with the money of the shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus it necessarily happens that

railway officers and servants are not remunerated on the whole by any means splendidly, and that they cannot

hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet the ordinary wants and hazards of life. But it is to

be observed that the general hazards are in their case, by reason of the dangerous nature of their avocations,

exceptionally great, so very great, I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a parliamentary paper, by the

very startling round of figures, that whereas one railway traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers is killed, one

Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual prudential and benevolent considerations, there

came to be established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago, the Railway Benevolent

Association. I may suppose, therefore, as it was established nine years ago, that this is the ninth occasion of

publishing from this chair the banns between this institution and the public. Nevertheless, I feel bound

individually to do my duty the same as if it had never been done before, and to ask whether there is any just

cause or impediment why these two parties the institution and the public should not be joined together in

holy charity. As I understand the society, its objects are five fold first, to guarantee annuities which, it is

always to be observed, is paid out of the interest of invested capital, so that those annuities may be secure and

safe annual pensions, varying from 10 to 25 pounds, to distressed railway officers and servants

incapacitated by age, sickness, or accident; secondly, to guarantee small pensions to distressed widows;

thirdly, to educate and maintain orphan children; fourthly, to provide temporary relief for all those classes till

lasting relief can be guaranteed out of funds sufficiently large for the purpose; lastly, to induce railway

officers and servants to assure their lives in some well established office by subdividing the payment of the

premiums into small periodical sums, and also by granting a reversionary bonus of 10 pounds per cent. on the

This is the society we are met to assist simple, sympathetic, practical, easy, sensible, unpretending. The

number of its members is large, and rapidly on the increase: they number 12,000; the amount of invested

capital is very nearly 15,000 pounds; it has done a world of good and a world of work in these first nine years

of its life; and yet I am proud to say that the annual cost of the maintenance of the institution is no more than

250 pounds. And now if you do not know all about it in a small compass, either I do not know all about it

One naturally passes from what the institution is and has done, to what it wants. Well, it wants to do more

good, and it cannot possibly do more good until it has more money. It cannot safely, and therefore it cannot

honourably, grant more pensions to deserving applicants until it grows richer, and it cannot grow rich enough

for its laudable purpose by its own unaided self. The thing is absolutely impossible. The means of these

railway officers and servants are far too limited. Even if they were helped to the utmost by the great railway

companies, their means would still be too limited; even if they were helped and I hope they shortly will be

by some of the great corporations of this country, whom railways have done so much to enrich. These

railway officers and servants, on their road to a very humble and modest superannuation, can no more do

without the help of the great public, than the great public, on their road from Torquay to Aberdeen, can do

without them. Therefore, I desire to ask the public whether the servants of the great railways who, in fact,

are their servants, their ready, zealous, faithful, hardworking servants whether they have not established,

whether they do not every day establish, a reasonable claim to liberal remembrance.

Now, gentlemen, on this point of the case there is a story once told me by a friend of mine, which seems to

my mind to have a certain application. My friend was an American seacaptain, and, therefore, it is quite

unnecessary to say his story was quite true. He was captain and part owner of a large American merchant

liner. On a certain voyage out, in exquisite summer weather, he had for cabin passengers one beautiful young

lady, and ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen. Light winds or dead calms prevailing, the voyage was

slow. They had made half their distance when the ten young gentlemen were all madly in love with the

beautiful young lady. They had all proposed to her, and bloodshed among the rivals seemed imminent

pending the young lady's decision. On this extremity the beautiful young lady confided in my friend the

captain, who gave her discreet advice. He said: "If your affections are disengaged, take that one of the young

gentlemen whom you like the best and settle the question." To this the beautiful young lady made reply, "I

cannot do that because I like them all equally well." My friend, who was a man of resource, hit upon this

ingenious expedient, said he, "Tomorrow morning at mid day, when lunch is announced, do you plunge

bodily overboard, head foremost. I will be alongside in a boat to rescue you, and take the one of the ten who

rushes to your rescue, and then you can afterwards have him." The beautiful young lady highly approved, and

did accordingly. But after she plunged in, nine out of the ten more or less beautiful young gentlemen plunged

in after her; and the tenth remained and shed tears, looking over the side of the vessel. They were all picked

up, and restored dripping to the deck. The beautiful young lady upon seeing them said, "What am I to do? See

what a plight they are in. How can I possibly choose, because every one of them is equally wet?" Then said

my friend the captain, acting upon a sudden inspiration, "Take the dry one." I am sorry to say that she did so,

Now, gentleman, in my application of this story, I exactly reverse my friend the captain's anecdote, and I

entreat the public in looking about to consider who are fit subjects for their bounty, to give each his hand with

something in it, and not award a dry hand to the industrious railway servant who is always at his back. And I

would ask any one with a doubt upon this subject to consider what his experience of the railway servant is

from the time of his departure to his arrival at his destination. I know what mine is. Here he is, in velveteen or

in a policeman's dress, scaling cabs, storming carriages, finding lost articles by a sort of instinct, binding up

lost umbrellas and walking sticks, wheeling trucks, counselling old ladies, with a wonderful interest in their

affairs mostly very complicated and sticking labels upon all sorts of articles. I look around there he is,

in a stationmaster's uniform, directing and overseeing, with the head of a general, and with the courteous

manners of a gentleman; and then there is the handsome figure of the guard, who inspires confidence in timid

passengers. I glide out of the station, and there he is again with his flags in his hand at his post in the open

country, at the level crossing, at the cutting, at the tunnel mouth, and at every station on the road until our

destination is reached. In regard, therefore, to the railway servants with whom we do come into contact, we

may surely have some natural sympathy, and it is on their behalf that I this night appeal to you. I beg now to

[On presiding at a public Meeting of the Printers' Readers, held at the Salisbury Hotel, on the above date, Mr.

THAT as the meeting was convened, not to hear him, but to hear a statement of facts and figures very nearly

affecting the personal interests of the great majority of those present, his preface to the proceedings need be

very brief. Of the details of the question he knew, of his own knowledge, absolutely nothing; but he had

consented to occupy the chair on that occasion at the request of the London Association of Correctors of the

Press for two reasons first, because he thought that openness and publicity in such cases were a very

wholesome example very much needed at this time, and were highly becoming to a body of men associated

with that great public safeguard the Press; secondly, because he knew from some slight practical

experience, what the duties of correctors of the press were, and how their duties were usually discharged; and

he could testify, and did testify, that they were not mechanical, that they were not mere matters of

manipulation and routine; but that they required from those who performed them much natural intelligence,

much superadded cultivation, readiness of reference, quickness of resource, an excellent memory, and a

clear understanding. He most gratefully acknowledged that he had never gone through the sheets of any book

that he had written, without having presented to him by the correctors of the press something that he had

overlooked, some slight inconsistency into which he had fallen, some little lapse he had made in short,

without having set down in black and white some unquestionable indication that he had been closely

followed through the work by a patient and trained mind, and not merely by a skilful eye. And in this

declaration he had not the slightest doubt that the great body of his brother and sister writers would, as a plain

act of justice, readily concur. For these plain reasons he was there; and being there he begged to assure them

that every one present that every speaker would have a patient hearing, whatever his opinions might be.

[The proceedings concluded with a very cordial and hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Dickens for taking the chair

Mr. Dickens briefly returned thanks, and expressed the belief that their very calm and temperate proceedings

would finally result in the establishment of relations of perfect amity between the employers and the

[On Saturday evening, November 2, 1867, a grand complimentary farewell dinner was given to Mr. Dickens

at the Freemasons' Tavern on the occasion of his revisiting the United States of America. Lord Lytton

officiated as chairman, and proposed as a toast "A Prosperous Voyage, Health, and Long Life to our

Illustrious Guest and Countryman, Charles Dickens". The toast was drunk with all the honours, and one cheer

NO thanks that I can offer you can express my sense of my reception by this great assemblage, or can in the

least suggest to you how deep the glowing words of my friend the chairman, and your acceptance of them,

have sunk into my heart. But both combined have so greatly shaken the composure which I am used to

command before an audience, that I hope you may observe in me some traces of an eloquence more

expressive than the richest words. To say that I am fervently grateful to you is to say nothing; to say that I can

never forget this beautiful sight, is to say nothing; to say that it brings upon me a rush of emotion not only in

the present, but in the thought of its remembrance in the future by those who are dearest to me, is to say

nothing; but to feel all this for the moment, even almost to pain, is very much indeed. Mercutio says of the

wound in his breast, dealt him by the hand of a foe, that "'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church

door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve." I may say of the wound in my breast, newly dealt to me by the hands of

my friends, that it is deeper than the soundless sea, and wider than the whole Catholic Church. I may safely

add that it has for the moment almost stricken me dumb. I should be more than human, and I assure you I am

very human indeed, if I could look around upon this brilliant representative company and not feel greatly

thrilled and stirred by the presence of so many brother artists, not only in literature, but also in the sister arts,

especially painting, among whose professors living and unhappily dead, are many of my oldest and best

friends. I hope that I may, without presumption, regard this thronging of my brothers around me as a

testimony on their part that they believe that the cause of art generally has been safe in my keeping, and that

it has never been falsely dealt with by me. Your resounding cheers just now would have been but so many

cruel reproaches to me if I could not here declare that, from the earliest days of my career down to this proud

night, I have always tried to be true to my calling. Never unduly to assert it, on the one hand, and never, on

any pretence or consideration, to permit it to be patronized in my person, has been the steady endeavour of

my life; and I have occasionally been vain enough to hope that I may leave its social position in England

better than I found it. Similarly, and equally I hope without presumption, I trust that I may take this general

representation of the public here, through so many orders, pursuits, and degrees, as a token that the public

believe that, with a host of imperfections and shortcomings on my head, I have as a writer, in my soul and

conscience, tried to be as true to them as they have ever been true to me. And here, in reference to the inner

circle of the arts and the outer circle of the public, I feel it a duty tonight to offer two remarks. I have in my

duty at odd times heard a great deal about literary sets and cliques, and coteries and barriers; about keeping

this man up, and keeping that man down; about sworn disciples and sworn unbelievers, and mutual

admiration societies, and I know not what other dragons in the upward path. I began to tread it when I was

very young, without influence, without money, without companion, introducer, or adviser, and I am bound to

put in evidence in this place that I never lighted on these dragons yet. So have I heard in my day, at divers

other odd times, much generally to the effect that the English people have little or no love of art for its own

sake, and that they do not greatly care to acknowledge or do honour to the artist. My own experience has

uniformly been exactly the reverse. I can say that of my countrymen, though I cannot say that of my country.

And now passing to the immediate occasion of your doing me this great honour, the story of my going again

to America is very easily and briefly told. Since I was there before a vast and entirely new generation has

arisen in the United States. Since I was there before most of the best known of my books have been written

and published; the new generation and the books have come together and have kept together, until at length

numbers of those who have so widely and constantly read me; naturally desiring a little variety in the

relationship between us, have expressed a strong wish that I should read myself. This wish, at first conveyed

to me through public channels and business channels, has gradually become enforced by an immense

accumulation of letters from individuals and associations of individuals, all expressing 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 would agree with me it would be dull insensibility on my part not to

prize. Little by little this pressure has become so great that, although, as Charles Lamb says, my household

gods strike a terribly deep root, I have torn them from their places, and this day week, at this hour, shall be

upon the sea. You will readily conceive that I am inspired besides by a natural desire to see for myself the

astonishing change and progress of a quarter of a century over there, to grasp the hands of many faithful

friends whom I left there, to see the faces of the multitude of new friends upon whom I have never looked,

and last, not least, to use my best endeavour to lay down a third cable of intercommunication and alliance

between the old world and the new. Twelve years ago, when Heaven knows I little thought I should ever be

bound upon the voyage which now lies before me, I wrote in that form of my writings which obtains by far

the most extensive circulation, these words of the American nation: "I know full well, whatever little motes

my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, that they are a kind, largehearted, generous, and great people."

In that faith I am going to see them again; in that faith I shall, please God, return from them in the spring; in

that same faith to live and to die. I told you in the beginning that I could not thank you enough, and Heaven

knows I have most thoroughly kept my word. If I may quote one other short sentence from myself, let it

imply all that I have left unsaid, and yet most deeply feel. Let it, putting a girdle round the earth, comprehend

both sides of the Atlantic at once in this moment, and say, as Tiny Tim observes, "God bless us every one."

[Mr. Dickens gave his last Reading at Boston, on the above date. On his entrance a surprise awaited him. His

readingstand had been decorated with flowers and palmleaves by some of the ladies of the city. He

acknowledged this graceful tribute in the following words: "Before allowing Dr. Marigold to tell his story in

his own peculiar way, I kiss the kind, fair hands unknown, which have so beautifully decorated my table this

evening." After the Reading, Mr. Dickens attempted in vain to retire. Persistent hands demanded "one word

more." Returning to his desk, pale, with a tear in his eye, that found its way to his voice, he spoke as

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, My gracious and generous welcome in America, which can never be

obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My departure begins here, too; for I assure you that I have

never until this moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost

anything for the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned towards

my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments

from this time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade from my view for ever more. But it is my

consolation that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the ready response, the generous and the

cheering sounds that have made this place delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon it that that

I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships that have for years upon years made Boston

a memorable and beloved spot to me, for such private references have no business in this public place. I say it

Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and most affectionately, to bid you, each and all,

[On the above date Mr. Dickens was entertained at a farewell dinner at Delmonico's Hotel, previous to his

return to England. Two hundred gentlemen sat down to it; Mr. Horace Greeley presiding. In acknowledgment

of the toast of his health, proposed by the chairman, Mr. Dickens rose and said:]

GENTLEMEN, I cannot do better than take my cue to from your distinguished president, and refer in my

first remarks to his remarks in connexion with the old, natural, association between you and me. When I

received an invitation from a private association of working members of the press of New York to dine with

them to day, I accepted that compliment in grateful remembrance of a calling that was once my own, and in

loyal sympathy towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quieted. To the wholesome training

of severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons

will hereafter testify of their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder by which he rose. If it

were otherwise, I should have but a very poor opinion of their father, which, perhaps, upon the whole, I have

not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances, this company would have been exceptionally interesting

and gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed that, like the fairies' pavilion in the "Arabian Nights," it would

be but a mere handful, and I find it turn out, like the same elastic pavilion, capable of comprehending a

multitude, so much the more proud am I of the honour of being your guest; for you will readily believe that

the more widely representative of the press in America my entertainers are, the more I must feel the

Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, and I have for upwards of four hard winter

months so contended against what I have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was "a true American

catarrh " a possession which I have throughout highly appreciated, though I might have preferred to be

naturalised by any other outward and visible signs I say, gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been

heard, that I might have been contented with troubling you no further from my present standingpoint, were

it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion whatsoever

and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my

honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by

the amazing changes that I have seen around me on every side changes moral, changes physical, changes in

the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of

older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the press,

without whose advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to

suppose that in fiveandtwenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I had nothing to learn and

And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed here last November, observed

a strict silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your good leave,

take you into my confidence now. Even the press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed,

and I rather think that I have in one or two rare instances known its information to be not perfectly accurate

with reference to myself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have read

of myself than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour

and perseverance with which I have for some months past been collecting materials for and hammering away

at a new book on America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has been perfectly well

known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that I positively declared that no consideration on earth

should induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the

confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own person, to bear, for the behoof of

my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at tonight. Also, to

record that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with

unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect

for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health. This

testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to

be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to

America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it

Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest in America to those of the mass of my

countrymen seems to be a natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. I was asked in

this very city, about last Christmas time, whether an American was not at some disadvantage in England as a

foreigner. The notion of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his ever being

thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd to me, that my gravity

was, for the moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was restored, I said that for years and years past I

hoped I had had as many American friends and had received as many American visitors as almost any

Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England

to be an American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition anywhere. Hereupon, out of

halfadozen people, suddenly spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art,

who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a certain historical English castle, famous for

its pictures, was refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the establishment on that day, but

who, on merely representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the picture

gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his immediate disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London,

and having a great desire to see the famous readingroom of the British Museum, was assured by the English

family with whom she stayed that it was unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week,

and she had only three days there. Upon that lady's going to the Museum, as she assured me, alone to the

gate, selfintroduced as an American lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am unwillingly bound

to add that she certainly was young and exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution is of an obese

habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him, not very impressible.

Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance to you that the Englishman who shall humbly

strive, as I hope to do, to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself, has no previous

conceptions to contend against. Points of difference there have been, points of difference there are, points of

difference there probably always will be between the two great peoples. But broadcast in England is sown the

sentiment that those two peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great

AngloSaxon race, to which our president has referred, and all its great achievements before the world. And

if I know anything of my countrymen and they give me credit for knowing something if I know anything

of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those Stars and Stripes, as it is

stirred by no other flag that flies except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation towards

America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended that lovers should begin, with "a little

aversion," but with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment,

or the little official passion, or the little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, take my word

for it, that the first enduring, great, popular consideration in England is a generous construction of justice.

Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do believe that from the great majority of

honest minds on both sides, there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for this globe to be

riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear,

than that it should present the spectacle of these two great nations, each of which has, in its own way and

hour, striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one against the other.

Gentlemen, I cannot thank your president enough or you enough for your kind reception of my health, and of

my poor remarks, but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable.

[Mr. Dickens's last Reading in the United States was given at the Steinway Hall on the above date. The task

finished he was about to retire, but a tremendous burst of applause stopped him. He came forward and spoke

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The shadow of one word has impended over me this evening, and the time

has come at length when the shadow must fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is not

measured by their length, and two much shorter words express the round of our human existence. When I was

reading "David Copperfield" a few evenings since, I felt there was more than usual significance in the words

of Peggotty, "My future life lies over the sea." And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly that I

was shortly to establish such an ALIBI as would have satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. 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 by you sustained with the readiest sympathy and the kindest acknowledgment.

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 public audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with the

greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell. God bless

[The following speech was delivered by Mr. Dickens at a Banquet held in his honour at St. George's Hall,

MR. MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, although I have been so well accustomed of late to the sound

of my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion is, believe me,

very, very different in respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to

me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea, from hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he

found himself to be when he was quite alone so you can form no conception, from the specimen before

you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and again in some of the innermost moments of my

future life. Often and often, then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant scene, and will

reilluminate this banquethall. I, faithful to this place in its present aspect, will observe it exactly as it

stands not one man's seat empty, not one woman's fair face absent, while life and memory abide by me.

Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so eloquently uttered, and so rapturously

received, made a graceful and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble

city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment's untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact

built upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation,

systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to them through

the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremost among the great places out of London to which I looked with

eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this? Not merely because of the reputation of its citizens for

generous estimation of the arts; not merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of its great self

educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had been a home to me since the

wellremembered day when its blessed roofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion

of my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the Atlantic twentyseven years ago. Not for one

of those considerations, but because it had been my happiness to have a public opportunity of testing the

spirit of its people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation of Shakespeare's house.

On another occasion I had ventured to address Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles.

On still another occasion I had addressed it in the cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the

kindred arts, and on each and all the response had been unsurpassably spontaneous, open handed, and

Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a small illustration of my present position from

my own peculiar craft, I would say that there is this objection in writing fiction to giving a story an

autobiographical form, that through whatever dangers the narrator may pass, it is clear unfortunately to the

reader beforehand that he must have come through them somehow else he could not have lived to tell the tale.

Now, in speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such honours as those with which you have enriched

me, there is this singular difficulty in the way of returning thanks, that the speaker must infallibly come back

to himself through whatever oratorical disasters he may languish on the road. Let me, then, take the plainer

and simpler middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let me assure you that

whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have

greatly improved in the acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly refined which has seven times

passed the furnace, so a fancy may be said to become more and more refined each time it passes through the

human heart. You have, and you know you have, brought to the consideration of me that quality in yourselves

without which I should but have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made

me laugh, and your tears have overflowed my eyes. All that I can claim for myself in establishing the

relations which exist between us is constant fidelity to hard work. My literary fellows about me, of whom I

am so proud to see so many, know very well how true it is in all art that what seems the easiest done is

oftentimes the most difficult to do, and that the smallest truth may come of the greatest pains much, as it

occurred to me at Manchester the other day, as the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth's measuring machine,

comes at last, of Heaven and Manchester and its mayor only know how much hammering my

companionsinarms know thoroughly well, and I think it only right the public should know too, that in our

careful toil and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence not in any little gifts, misused by fits and

starts lies our highest duty at once to our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to clear myself of two very unexpected

accusations. The first is a most singular charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord Houghton, that I

have been somewhat unconscious of the merits of the House of Lords. Now, ladies and gentlemen, seeing

that I have had some few not altogether obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly, seeing that I

had some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England by the

name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard with some admiration and affection another obscure peer

wholly unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have had for some years some slight

admiration of the extraordinary judicial properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice

popularly known by the name of Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no man in England whom I respect

more in his public capacity, whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have received more

remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell;

taking these circumstances into consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend's accusation. When I

asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he replied that he had

never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all. Because it is a

remarkable fact that in the days when that depreciative and profoundly unnatural character was invented there

was no Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House of Commons a rather indifferent

Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude, for the present, I close with the other charge of my noble friend, and here

I am more serious, and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a dozen plain words.

When I first took literature as my profession in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I

succeeded or whether I failed, literature should be my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time that it

was not so well understood in England as it was in other countries that literature was a dignified profession,

by which any man might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should

stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is no consideration on earth which would induce me to

Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great kindness, and for the touching earnestness

with which you have drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it had not so

unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost my heart at between halfpast six and

[The International University Boat Race having taken place on August 27, the London Rowing Club invited

the Crews to a Dinner at the Crystal Palace on the following Monday. The dinner was followed by a grand

display of pyrotechnics. Mr. Dickens, in proposing the health of the Crews, made the following speech:]

GENTLEMEN, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as about to imitate those gorgeous

illusions by making a brief spirt and then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the London

Rowing Club on this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in the name of the other invited visitors present

always excepting the distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting to thank the president for the

modesty and the courtesy with which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of his evening's

duty. It is the more graceful in him to do this because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it

himself, as this is a case of all others in which it is according to good taste and the very principles of things

that the great social vice, speechmaking, should hide it diminished head before the great social virtue action.

However, there is an ancient story of a lady who threw her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her

attendant lover to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferring from the action the worth of the

lady, risked his life for the glove, and then threw it rightly in her face as a token of his eternal adieu. I take up

the President's glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and of my real interest in the

cause in which it was thrown down, and I now profess my readiness to do even injustice to the duty which he

Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in the United States within a short time

before my last visit to that hospitable land, containing ninetyfive biographies of young men, for the most

part wellborn and well nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits of life, who, when the flag of their

country waved them from those quiet paths in which they were seeking distinction of various kinds, took

arms in the dread civil war which elicited so much bravery on both sides, and died in the defence of their

country. These great spirits displayed extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, of

military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great masses of men, in surprising readiness of

selfresource for the general good, in humanely treating the sick and the wounded, and in winning to

themselves a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had all risen to be distinguished

soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; they had all combined with their valour and selfdevotion

a serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; and they had all been educated in one

Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants of our forefathers than the invincible

determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted

defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than

she was in war? I ask you, who will not recognise in her boat's crew the leaven of her soldiers, and who does

not feel that she has now a greater right than ever to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to her breast

when they return with resounding acclamations? It is related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told a

lady who foolishly protested that she would like to see a great victory that there was only one thing worse

But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term a great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful

of daring fellows who make a preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles to meet great

conquerors on their own domain who do not want the stimulus of friends and home, but who sufficiently

hear and feel their own dear land in the shouts and cheers of another and who strive to the last with a

desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree

with me that such a defeat is a great, noble part of a manly, wholesome action; and I say that it is in the

Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to propose, and you know equally well that in

thus glancing first towards our friends of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive

courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers from a distance a courtesy extending, I hope, and I do not doubt,

to any imaginable limits except allowing them to take the first place in last Friday's match, if they could by

any human and honourable means be kept in the second. I will not avail myself of the opportunity provided

for me by the absence of the greater part of the Oxford crew indeed, of all but one, and that, its most

modest and devoted member I will not avail myself of the golden opportunity considerately provided for

me to say a great deal in honour of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who attends here attends

under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if he were less in earnest his filial affection could not

It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you, that I should say here, and now, that we all

unite with one accord in regarding the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England and that we should

consider it very weak indeed to set anything short of England's very best in opposition to or competition with

America; though it certainly must be confessed I am bound in common justice and honour to admit it it

must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented gentleman remark last

Friday night, about ten o'clock, when he was baiting a very small horse in the Strand he was one of eleven

with pipes in a chaise cart I say it must be admitted in disparagement of the Oxford men on the authority of

this gentleman, that they have won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and that "they ought to

Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of

the gallant spectacle which they presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure I express not only

your feeling, and my feeling, and the feeling of the Blue, but also the feeling of the whole people of England,

when I cordially give them welcome to our English waters and English ground, and also bid them "God

speed" in their voyage home. As the greater includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I think it is no

very bold augury to predict that in the friendly contests yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both sides of

the Atlantic there are great river triumphs for Harvard University yet in store. Gentlemen, I warn the

English portion of this audience that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an undergraduate

of Harvard University who served as a common seaman two years before the mast, and who wrote about the

best sea book in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those young American gentlemen who

sailed his mite of a yacht across the Atlantic in midwinter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with the

And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure

our brothers from a distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received on their return home

will find a ready echo in every corner of England and further, that none of their immediate countrymen I

use the qualifying term immediate, for we are, as our president said, fellow countrymen, thank God that

none of their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what they did in this great race, can be more

thoroughly imbued with a sense of their indomitable courage and their high deserts than are their rivals and

their hosts to night. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink the crews of Harvard and Oxford

University, and I beg to couple with that toast the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan.

[Inaugural Address on the opening of the Winter Session of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.

One who was present during the delivery of the following speech, informs the editor that "no note of any kind

was referred to by Mr. Dickens except the Quotation from Sydney Smith. The address, evidently carefully

prepared, was delivered without a single pause, in Mr. Dickens's best manner, and was a very great success."]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, We often hear of our common country that it is an overpopulated one, that

it is an overpauperized one, that it is an overcolonizing one, and that it is an overtaxed one. Now, I

entertain, especially of late times, the heretical belief that it is an overtalked one, and that there is a deal of

public speechmaking going about in various directions which might be advantageously dispensed with. If I

were free to act upon this conviction, as president for the time being of the great institution so numerously

represented here, I should immediately and at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of a highly

edifying, because of a very exemplary character. But I happen to be the institution's willing servant, not its

imperious master, and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech not to say brazen from

whomsoever it exalts to my high office. Some African tribes not to draw the comparison disrespectfully

some savage African tribes, when they make a king require him perhaps to achieve an exhausting footrace

under the stimulus of considerable popular prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and

experimentally knocked about the head by his Privy Council, or perhaps to be dipped in a river full of

crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash at all events, to

I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned by your constituted authorities that

whatever I might happen to say here tonight would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance upon a

new term of study by the members of your various classes; for, besides that, the phrase is something

highsounding for my taste, I avow that I do look forward to that blessed time when every man shall

inaugurate his own work for himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then have inaugurated a new era

indeed, and one in which the Lord's Prayer will become a fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering,

however, that you may call anything by any name without in the least changing its nature bethinking

myself that you may, if you be so minded, call a butterfly a buffalo, without advancing a hair's breadth

towards making it one I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to the very homely intention I

had previously formed. This was merely to tell you, the members, students, and friends of the Birmingham

and Midland Institute firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know, (this is a very popular oratorical

theme); secondly, what your institution has done; and, thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its President for

Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You cannot need from me any oratorical

declamation concerning the abstract advantages of knowledge or the beauties of self improvement. If you

had any such requirement you would not be here. I conceive that you are here because you have become

thoroughly penetrated with such principles, either in your own persons or in the persons of some striving

fellowcreatures, on whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I conceive that you are here because

you feel the welfare of the great chiefly adult educational establishment, whose doors stand really open to all

sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable from the best welfare of your great town and its

neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say that we all every one of us here

perfectly well know that the benefits of such an establishment must extend far beyond the limits of this

midland county its fires and smoke, and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole community, I do not

strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage, in his ninth "Bridgewater Treatise," that a mere spoken

word a single articulated syllable thrown into the air may go on reverberating through illimitable space

for ever and for ever, seeing that there is no rim against which it can strike no boundary at which it can

possibly arrive. Similarly it may be said not as an ingenious speculation, but as a stedfast and absolute fact

that human calculation cannot limit the influence of one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired,

As the astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in the universe innumerable solar systems besides

ours, to each of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain that every man,

however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible

for good, and impressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he cannot really improve

himself without in some degree improving other men. And observe, this is especially the case when he has

improved himself in the teeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to a neglected or an

illtaught youth, in the few daily hours remaining to him after ten or twelve hours' labour, in the few pauses

and intervals of a life of toil; for then his fellows and companions have assurance that he can have known no

favouring conditions, and that they can do what he has done, in wresting some enlightenment and

As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your own observation, and as it may be safely

assumed that there can be very few persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who would contest

the position that the more cultivated the employed the better for the employer, and the more cultivated the

employer the better for the employed; therefore, my references to what you do not want to know shall here

Next, with reference to what your institution has done on my summary, which shall be as concise and as

correct as my information and my remembrance of it may render possible, I desire to lay emphatic stress.

Your institution, sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen study together, has outgrown the

ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of its

vigorous vitality that of its industrialstudents almost half are artisans in the receipt of weekly wages. I think

I am correct in saying that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen's sons. I note with

particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the gentler sex, without whom no institution

whatever can truly claim to be either a civilising or a civilised one. The increased attendance at your

educational classes is always greatest on the part of the artisans the class within my experience the least

reached in any similar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is the oftenest and the most constantly taken in

vain. But it is specially reached here, not improbably because it is, as it should be, specially addressed in the

foundation of the industrial department, in the allotment of the direction of the society's affairs, and in the

establishment of what are called its penny classes a bold, and, I am happy to say, a triumphantly successful

experiment, which enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects directly bearing upon

his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness, as arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical

geography, and singing, on payment of the astoundingly low fee of a single penny every time he attends the

class. I beg emphatically to say that I look upon this as one of the most remarkable schemes ever devised for

the educational behoof of the artisan, and if your institution had done nothing else in all its life, I would take

Apart, however, from its industrial department, it has its general department, offering all the advantages of a

firstclass literary institution. It has its readingrooms, its library, its chemical laboratory, its museum, its art

department, its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive interest,

delivered by lecturers of the highest qualifications. Very well. But it may be asked, what are the practical

results of all these appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that your institution should have educated

those who are now its teachers. That would be a very remarkable fact. Supposing, besides, it should, so to

speak, have educated education all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers into many and

divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should be presently snapped

up for the laboratory of the great and famous hospitals. Suppose that in nine years its industrial students

should have carried off a round dozen of the much competed for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and

the Government department, besides two local prizes originating in the generosity of a Birmingham man.

Suppose that the Town Council, having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the Whitworth prizes,

should find him here. Suppose that one of the industrial students should turn his chemical studies to the

practical account of extracting gold from waste colour water, and of taking it into custody, in the very act of

running away with hundreds of pounds down the town drains. Suppose another should perceive in his books,

in his studious evenings, what was amiss with his master's until then inscrutably defective furnace, and

should go straight to the great annual saving of that master and put it right. Supposing another should

puzzle out the means, until then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of coloured glass.

Supposing another should qualify himself to vanquish one by one, as they daily arise, all the little difficulties

incidental to his calling as an electroplater, and should be applied to by his companions in the shop in all

emergencies under the name of the "Encyclopaedia." Suppose a long procession of such cases, and then

consider that these are not suppositions at all, but are plain, unvarnished facts, culminating in the one special

and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, every one of the institution's industrial students who

have taken its prizes within ten years, have since climbed to higher situations in their way of life.

As to the extent to which the institution encourages the artisan to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior

to the little shackling prejudices and observances perchance existing in his trade when they will not bear the

test of inquiry, that is only to be equalled by the extent to which it encourages him to feel. There is a certain

tone of modest manliness pervading all the little facts which I have looked through which I found remarkably

impressive. The decided objection on the part of industrial students to attend classes in their working clothes,

breathes this tone, as being a graceful and at the same time perfectly independent recognition of the place and

of one another. And this tone is admirably illustrated in a different way, in the case of a poor bricklayer, who,

being in temporary reverses through the illness of his family, and having consequently been obliged to part

with his best clothes, and being therefore missed from his classes, in which he had been noticed as a very

hard worker, was persuaded to attend them in his working clothes. He replied, "No, it was not possible. It

must not be thought of. It must not come into question for a moment. It would be supposed, or it might be

thought, that he did it to attract attention." And the same man being offered by one of the officers a loan of

money to enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the ground that he came to the

institution to learn and to know better how to help himself, not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help from

any man. Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the institution, because it is no isolated instance, but is

a fair and honourable sample of the spirit of the place, and as such I put it at the conclusion though last

certainly not least of my references to what your institution has indubitably done.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble opinion of the evanescent officer before

you, remains for the institution to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it towards the closing pages of his

grand history of the French Revolution, "This we are now with due brevity to glance at; and then courage, oh

listener, I see land!" I earnestly hope and I firmly believe that your institution will do henceforth as it has

done hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and believe that it will know among its members no distinction

of persons, creed, or party, but that it will conserve its place of assemblage as a high, pure ground, on which

all such considerations shall merge into the one universal, heavensent aspiration of the human soul to be

wiser and better. I hope and believe that it will always be expansive and elastic; for ever seeking to devise

new means of enlarging the circle of its members, of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater and

greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition to stand still than time does, or life does, or the

seasons do. And above all things, I hope, and I feel confident from its antecedents, that it will never allow any

consideration on the face of the earth to induce it to patronise or to be patronised, for I verily believe that the

bestowal and receipt of patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has done more to

prevent really good objects, and to lower really high character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest

I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland Institute will ever tremble responsive to the

croakings of the timid opponents of intellectual progress; but in this connexion generally I cannot forbear

from offering a remark which is much upon my mind. It is commonly assumed much too commonly that

this age is a material age, and that a material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained lately to see this

assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for which I have a high respect, and desire to have a

higher. I am afraid that by dint of constantly being reiterated, and reiterated without protest, this assumption

which I take leave altogether to deny may be accepted by the more unthinking part of the public as

unquestionably true; just as caricaturists and painters, professedly making a portrait of some public man,

which was not in the least like him to begin with, have gone on repeating and repeating it until the public

came to believe that it must be exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, and really have at last, in

the fulness of time, grown almost disposed to resent upon him their tardy discovery really to resent upon

him their late discovery that he was not like it. I confess, standing here in this responsible situation, that I

do not understand this muchused and muchabused phrase the "material age." I cannot comprehend if

anybody can I very much doubt its logical signification. For instance, has electricity become more material

in the mind of any sane or moderately insane man, woman, or child, because of the discovery that in the good

providence of God it could be made available for the service and use of man to an immeasurably greater

extent than for his destruction? Do I make a more material journey to the bedside of my dying parent or my

dying child when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, than when I travel thither at the rate of six?

Rather, in the swiftest case, does not my agonised heart become overfraught with gratitude to that Supreme

Beneficence from whom alone could have proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense? What

is the materiality of the cable or the wire compared with the materiality of the spark? What is the materiality

of certain chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or release, compared with the

materiality of their appointed affinities and repulsions presented to them from the instant of their creation to

the day of judgment? When did this socalled material age begin? With the use of clothing; with the

discovery of the compass; with the invention of the art of printing? Surely, it has been a long time about; and

which is the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give me light, or that flame of gas

No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived by any fine, vapid, empty words. The true

material age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are granted, because

they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference

between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning and the modern historical picture of

Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study that which was set

before him to be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction

between the muchmaligned material sages material in one sense, I suppose, but in another very immaterial

sages of the Celestial Empire school. Consider whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or unnatural,

reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, and finding myself surrounded by such

discovered wonders on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the question should put to myself the

solemn consideration can these things be among those things which might have been disclosed by divine

lips nigh upon two thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could not bear them? And whether this

be so or no, if I am so surrounded on every hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased

thereby, and with it my intelligence and submission as a child of Adam and of the dust, before that Shining

Source which equally of all that is granted and all that is withheld holds in His mighty hands the

To the students of your industrial classes generally I have had it in my mind, first, to commend the short

motto, in two words, "Courage Persevere." This is the motto of a friend and worker. Not because the eyes

of Europe are upon them, for I don't in the least believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon

them, for I don't in the least believe it; not because their doings will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at

street corners, for no such musical performances will take place; not because self improvement is at all

certain to lead to worldly success, but simply because it is good and right of itself, and because, being so, it

does assuredly bring with it its own resources and its own rewards. I would further commend to them a very

wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding which was given more than half a century

ago by the Rev. Sydney Smith wisest and wittiest of the friends I have lost. He says and he is speaking,

you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of volunteer students he says: "There is a piece of

foppery which is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all sciences and

excelling in all arts chymistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low

Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very often is, 'Take the

Admirable Crichton for your model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.' Now," says he, "my advice, on

the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid the

To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good of my own life and the life of every eminent

man I have ever known. The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and

in every pursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can most

truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble,

patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association

of ideas such mental qualities, like the qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in

MACBETH, will not be commanded; but attention, after due term of submissive service, always will. Like

certain plants which the poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by any one, and it is

certain in its own good season to bring forth flowers and fruit. I can most truthfully assure you bytheby,

that this eulogium on attention is so far quite disinterested on my part as that it has not the least reference

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect how often you have probably heard within these

walls one of the foremost men, and certainly one of the very best speakers, if not the very best, in England. I

but I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, "I will be as natural and easy as I possibly can," because

my heart has all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men. I have

said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and

add "and Birmingham women." This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if by

rubbing it I could raise the spirit that was obedient to Aladdin's ring, I heartily assure you that my first

instruction to that genius on the spot should be to place himself at Birmingham's disposal in the best of

Ladies and gentlemen, as I hope it is more than possible that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again

before Christmas is out, and shall have the great interest of seeing the faces and touching the bands of the

successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing

of dread which must inevitably result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily, and I most sincerely

and fervently say to you, "Good night, and God bless you." In reference to the appropriate and excellent

remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge my conscience of my political creed, which is contained in two

articles, and has no reference to any party or persons. My faith in the people governing is, on the whole,

[On the evening of the above date, Mr. Dickens, as President of the Birmingham and Midland Institute,

distributed the prizes and certificates awarded to the most successful students in the first year. The

proceedings took place in the Town Hall: Mr. Dickens entered at eight o'clock, accompanied by the officers

of the Institute, and was received with loud applause. After the lapse of a minute or two, he rose and said:]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, When I last had the honour to preside over a meeting of the Institution

which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a certain superabundance of public speaking

which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require very little selfdenial on my part to practise

now what I preached then; firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly, because we have

definite and highly interesting action before us tonight. We have now to bestow the rewards which have

been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the society's lists. I say the most successful,

because tonight we should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and

that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory

achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves, besides, in the vast

majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made.

Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be certain that he has still won much very much

and that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who have passed him in the race.

I have applied the word "rewards" to these prizes, and I do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic

worth in silver or gold, but precisely because they do not. They represent what is above all price what can

be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what is one of the great needs of the human soul encouraging

sympathy. They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, that he does not

work either neglected or unfriended, and that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. Such an

assurance, conveyed in the presence of this large assembly, and striking to the breasts of the recipients that

thrill which is inseparable from any great united utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely

worthy of the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a sensitive spirit can never be

[One of the prizetakers was a Miss Winkle, a name suggestive of "Pickwick," which was received with

laugher. Mr. Dickens made some remarks to the lady in an undertone; and then observed to the audience, "I

have recommended Miss Winkle to change her name." The prizes having been distributed, Mr. Dickens made

The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself of the delightful task you have entrusted to

me; and if the recipients of these prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform have had the

genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments from my hands that I have had in placing them in theirs,

they are in a true Christian temper tonight. I have the painful sense upon me, that it is reserved for some one

else to enjoy this great satisfaction of mind next time. It would be useless for the few short moments longer to

disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another Sovereign will very

soon sit upon my inconstant throne. Tonight I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in the modern

annals of Royalty I am politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a

very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission to say a closing word.

When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a

short confession of my political faith or perhaps I should better say want of faith. It imported that I have

very little confidence in the people who govern us please to observe "people" there will be with a small "p,"

but that I have great confidence in the People whom they govern; please to observe "people" there with a

large "P." This was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil intention, I am absolutely sure, in

some quarters inversely explained. Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one which I do

see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the bottom of it a fiction called the

"Circumlocution Office," and perhaps also as the writer of an idle book or two, whose public opinions are

not obscurely stated perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in mind Hamlet's caution to speak

Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may be no mistake as to what I did mean, and as to

what I do mean, I will re state my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, a great writer,

and a great scholar, whose death, unfortunately for mankind, cut short his "History of Civilization in

England:" "They may talk as they will about reforms which Government has introduced and improvements

to be expected from legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of human affairs,

will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the

obstructors of society instead of its helpers, and that in the extremely few cases where their measures have

turned out well their success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, they have

implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been as they always should be the mere servants of the

[The first anniversary festival of the General Theatrical Fund Association was held on the evening of the

above date at the London Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus proposed the principal

GENTLEMEN, In offering to you a toast which has not as yet been publicly drunk in any company, it

becomes incumbent on me to offer a few words in explanation: in the first place, premising that the toast will

The Association, whose anniversary we celebrate tonight, was founded seven years ago, for the purpose of

granting permanent pensions to such of the CORPS DRAMATIQUE as had retired from the stage, either

from a decline in their years or a decay of their powers. Collected within the scope of its benevolence are all

actors and actresses, singers, or dancers, of five years' standing in the profession. To relieve their necessities

and to protect them from want is the great end of the Society, and it is good to know that for seven years the

members of it have steadily, patiently, quietly, and perseveringly pursued this end, advancing by regular

contribution, moneys which many of them could ill afford, and cheered by no external help or assistance of

any kind whatsoever. It has thus served a regular apprenticeship, but I trust that we shall establish tonight

that its time is out, and that henceforth the Fund will enter upon a flourishing and brilliant career.

I have no doubt that you are all aware that there are, and were when this institution was founded, two other

institutions existing of a similar nature Covent Garden and Drury Lane both of long standing, both richly

endowed. It cannot, however, be too distinctly understood, that the present Institution is not in any way

adverse to those. How can it be when it is only a wide and broad extension of all that is most excellent in the

principles on which they are founded? That such an extension was absolutely necessary was sufficiently

proved by the fact that the great body of the dramatic corps were excluded from the benefits conferred by a

membership of either of these institutions; for it was essential, in order to become a member of the Drury

Lane Society, that the applicant, either he or she, should have been engaged for three consecutive seasons as a

performer. This was afterwards reduced, in the case of Covent Garden, to a period of two years, but it really

is as exclusive one way as the other, for I need not tell you that Covent Garden is now but a vision of the past.

You might play the bottle conjuror with its dramatic company and put them all into a pint bottle. The human

voice is rarely heard within its walls save in connexion with corn, or the ambidextrous prestidigitation of the

Wizard of the North. In like manner, Drury Lane is conducted now with almost a sole view to the opera and

ballet, insomuch that the statue of Shakespeare over the door serves as emphatically to point out his grave as

his bust did in the church of StratforduponAvon. How can the profession generally hope to qualify for the

Drury Lane or Covent Garden institution, when the oldest and most distinguished members have been driven

from the boards on which they have earned their reputations, to delight the town in theatres to which the

I will again repeat that I attach no reproach to those other Funds, with which I have had the honour of being

connected at different periods of my life. At the time those Associations were established, an engagement at

one of those theatres was almost a matter of course, and a successful engagement would last a whole life; but

an engagement of two months' duration at Covent Garden would be a perfect Old Parr of an engagement just

now. It should never be forgotten that when those two funds were established, the two great theatres were

protected by patent, and that at that time the minor theatres were condemned by law to the representation of

the most preposterous nonsense, and some gentlemen whom I see around me could no more belong to the

As I honour the two old funds for the great good which they have done, so I honour this for the much greater

good it is resolved to do. It is not because I love them less, but because I love this more because it includes

Let us ever remember that there is no class of actors who stand so much in need of a retiring fund as those

who do not win the great prizes, but who are nevertheless an essential part of the theatrical system, and by

consequence bear a part in contributing to our pleasures. We owe them a debt which we ought to pay. The

beds of such men are not of roses, but of very artificial flowers indeed. Their lives are lives of care and

privation, and hard struggles with very stern realities. It is from among the poor actors who drink wine from

goblets, in colour marvellously like toast and water, and who preside at Barmecide beasts with wonderful

appetites for steaks, it is from their ranks that the most triumphant favourites have sprung. And surely,

besides this, the greater the instruction and delight we derive from the rich English drama, the more we are

bound to succour and protect the humblest of those votaries of the art who add to our instruction and

Hazlitt has well said that "There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

We greet them on the stage, we like to meet them in the streets; they almost always recal to us pleasant

associations." When they have strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, let them not be heard no more

but let them be heard sometimes to say that they are happy in their old age. When they have passed for the

last time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let them not pass away into

gloom and darkness, but let them pass into cheerfulness and light into a contented and happy home.

This is the object for which we have met; and I am too familiar with the English character not to know that it

will be effected. When we come suddenly in a crowded street upon the careworn features of a familiar face

crossing us like the ghost of pleasant hours long forgotten let us not recal those features with pain, in sad

remembrance of what they once were, but let us in joy recognise it, and go back a pace or two to meet it once

again, as that of a friend who has beguiled us of a moment of care, who has taught us to sympathize with

virtuous grief, cheating us to tears for sorrows not our own and we all know how pleasant are such tears.

I tried to recollect, in coming here, whether I had ever been in any theatre in my life from which I had not

brought away some pleasant association, however poor the theatre, and I protest, out of my varied experience,

I could not remember even one from which I had not brought some favourable impression, and that,

commencing with the period when I believed the clown was a being born into the world with infinite pockets,

and ending with that in which I saw the other night, outside one of the "Royal Saloons," a playbill which

showed me ships completely rigged, carrying men, and careering over boundless and tempestuous oceans.

And now, bespeaking your kindest remembrance of our theatres and actors, I beg to propose that you drink as

heartily and freely as ever a toast was drunk in this toastdrinking city "Prosperity to the General Theatrical

[On the above evening a Soiree of the Leeds Mechanics' Institution took place, at which about 1200 persons

were present. The chair was taken by Mr. Dickens, who thus addressed the meeting:]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Believe me, speaking to you with a most disastrous cold, which makes my

own voice sound very strangely in my ears that if I were not gratified and honoured beyond expression by

your cordial welcome, I should have considered the invitation to occupy my present position in this brilliant

assemblage in itself a distinction not easy to be surpassed. The cause in which we are assembled and the

objects we are met to promote, I take, and always have taken to be, THE cause and THE objects involving

almost all others that are essential to the welfare and happiness of mankind. And in a celebration like the

present, commemorating the birth and progress of a great educational establishment, I recognise a something,

not limited to the spectacle of the moment, beautiful and radiant though it be not limited even to the success

of the particular establishment in which we are more immediately interested but extending from this place

and through swarms of toiling men elsewhere, cheering and stimulating them in the onward, upward path that

lies before us all. Wherever hammers beat, or wherever factory chimneys smoke, wherever hands are busy, or

the clanking of machinery resounds wherever, in a word, there are masses of industrious human beings

whom their wise Creator did not see fit to constitute all body, but into each and every one of whom He

breathed a mind there, I would fain believe, some touch of sympathy and encouragement is felt from our

Ladies and gentlemen, glancing with such feelings at the report of your Institution for the present year sent to

me by your respected President whom I cannot help feeling it, bythebye, a kind of crime to depose, even

thus peacefully, and for so short a time I say, glancing over this report, I found one statement of fact in the

very opening which gave me an uncommon satisfaction. It is, that a great number of the members and

subscribers are among that class of persons for whose advantage Mechanics' Institutions were originated,

namely, persons receiving weekly wages. This circumstance gives me the greatest delight. I am sure that no

better testimony could be borne to the merits and usefulness of this Institution, and that no better guarantee

To such Associations as this, in their darker hours, there may yet reappear now and then the spectral shadow

of a certain dead and buried opposition; but before the light of a steady trust in them on the part of the general

people, bearing testimony to the virtuous influences of such Institutions by their own intelligence and

conduct, the ghost will melt away like early vapour from the ground. Fear of such Institutions as these! We

have heard people sometimes speak with jealousy of them, with distrust of them! Imagine here, on either

hand, two great towns like Leeds, full of busy men, all of them feeling necessarily, and some of them heavily,

the burdens and inequalities inseparable from civilized society. In this town there is ignorance, dense and

dark; in that town, education the best of education; that which the grown man from day to day and year to

year furnishes for himself and maintains for himself, and in right of which his education goes on all his life,

instead of leaving off, complacently, just when he begins to live in the social system. Now, which of these

two towns has a good man, or a good cause, reason to distrust and dread? "The educated one," does some

timid politician, with a marvellously weak sight, say (as I have heard such politicians say), "because

knowledge is power, and because it won't do to have too much power abroad." Why, ladies and gentlemen,

reflect whether ignorance be not power, and a very dreadful power. Look where we will, do we not find it

powerful for every kind of wrong and evil? Powerful to take its enemies to its heart, and strike its best friends

down powerful to fill the prisons, the hospitals, and the graves powerful for blind violence, prejudice, and

error, in all their gloomy and destructive shapes. Whereas the power of knowledge, if I understand it, is, to

bear and forbear; to learn the path of duty and to tread it; to engender that selfrespect which does not stop at

self, but cherishes the best respect for the best objects to turn an always enlarging acquaintance with the

joys and sorrows, capabilities and imperfections of our race to daily account in mildness of life and

gentleness of construction and humble efforts for the improvement, stone by stone, of the whole social fabric.

I never heard but one tangible position taken against educational establishments for the people, and that was,

that in this or that instance, or in these or those instances, education for the people has failed. And I have

never traced even this to its source but I have found that the term education, so employed, meant anything but

education implied the mere imperfect application of old, ignorant, preposterous spellingbook lessons to

the meanest purposes as if you should teach a child that there is no higher end in electricity, for example,

than expressly to strike a mutton pie out of the hand of a greedy boy and on which it is as unreasonable to

found an objection to education in a comprehensive sense, as it would be to object altogether to the combing

of youthful hair, because in a certain charity school they had a practice of combing it into the pupils' eyes.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I turn to the report of this Institution, on whose behalf we are met; and I start

with the education given there, and I find that it really is an education that is deserving of the name. I find

that there are papers read and lectures delivered, on a variety of subjects of interest and importance. I find that

there are evening classes formed for the acquisition of sound, useful English information, and for the study of

those two important languages, daily becoming more important in the business of life, the French and

German. I find that there is a class for drawing, a chemical class, subdivided into the elementary branch and

the manufacturing branch, most important here. I find that there is a dayschool at twelve shillings a quarter,

which small cost, besides including instruction in all that is useful to the merchant and the man of business,

admits to all the advantages of the parent institution. I find that there is a School of Design established in

connexion with the Government School; and that there was in January this year, a library of between six and

seven thousand books. Ladies and gentlemen, if any man would tell me that anything but good could come of

such knowledge as this, all I can say is, that I should consider him a new and most lamentable proof of the

necessity of such institutions, and should regard him in his own person as a melancholy instance of what a

There is one other paragraph in this report which struck my eye in looking over it, and on which I cannot help

offering a word of joyful notice. It is the steady increase that appears to have taken place in the number of

lady members among whom I hope I may presume are included some of the bright fair faces that are

clustered around me. Gentlemen, I hold that it is not good for man to be alone even in Mechanics'

Institutions; and I rank it as very far from among the last or least of the merits of such places, that he need not

be alone there, and that he is not. I believe that the sympathy and society of those who are our best and

dearest friends in infancy, in childhood, in manhood, and in old age, the most devoted and least selfish

natures that we know on earth, who turn to us always constant and unchanged, when others turn away, should

I know, gentlemen, by the evidence of my own proper senses at this moment, that there are charms and

graces in such greetings, such as no other greeting can possess. I know that in every beautiful work of the

Almighty hand, which is illustrated in your lectures, and in every real or ideal portraiture of fortitude and

goodness that you find in your books, there is something that must bring you home again to them for its

brightest and best example. And therefore, gentlemen, I hope that you will never be without them, or without

an increasing number of them in your studies and your commemorations; and that an immense number of

new marriages, and other domestic festivals naturally consequent upon those marriages, may be traced back

There are many gentlemen around me, distinguished by their public position and service, or endeared to you

by frequent intercourse, or by their zealous efforts on behalf of the cause which brings us together; and to

them I shall beg leave to refer you for further observations on this happy and interesting occasion; begging to

congratulate you finally upon the occasion itself; upon the prosperity and thriving prospects of your

institution; and upon our common and general good fortune in living in these times, when the means of

mental culture and improvement are presented cheaply, socially, and cheerfully, and not in dismal cells or

lonely garrets. And lastly, I congratulate myself, I assure you most heartily, upon the part with which I am

honoured on an occasion so congenial to my warmest feelings and sympathies, and I beg to thank you for

such evidences of your goodwill, as I never can coldly remember and never forget.

Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great satisfaction to me that this question has been put by the Mayor,

inasmuch as I hope I may receive it as a token that he has forgiven me those extremely large letters, which I

must say, from the glimpse I caught of them when I arrived in the town, looked like a leaf from the first

I will only observe, in reference to the proceeding of this evening, that after what I have seen, and the

excellent speeches I have heard from gentlemen of so many different callings and persuasions, meeting here

as on neutral ground, I do more strongly and sincerely believe than I ever have in my life, and that is saying

a great deal, that institutions such as this will be the means of refining and improving that social edifice

which has been so often mentioned tonight, until, unlike that Babel tower that would have taken heaven

by storm, it shall end in sweet accord and harmony amongst all classes of its builders.

Ladies and gentlemen, most respectfully and heartily I bid you good night and goodbye, and I trust the next

time we meet it will be in even greater numbers, and in a larger room, and that we often shall meet again, to

recal this evening, then of the past, and remember it as one of a series of increasing triumphs of your

[The first Soiree, commemorative of the opening of the Glasgow Athenaeum took place on the above evening

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Let me begin by endeavouring to convey to you the assurance that not even

the warmth of your reception can possibly exceed, in simple earnestness, the cordiality of the feeling with

which I come amongst you. This beautiful scene and your generous greeting would naturally awaken, under

any circumstances, no common feeling within me; but when I connect them with the high purpose of this

brilliant assembly when I regard it as an educational example and encouragement to the rest of Scotland

when I regard it no less as a recognition on the part of everybody here of the right, indisputable and

inalienable, of all those who are actively engaged in the work and business of life to elevate and improve

themselves so far as in them lies, by all good means I feel as if I stand here to swear brotherhood to all the

young men in Glasgow; and I may say to all the young women in Glasgow; being unfortunately in no

position to take any tenderer vows upon myself and as if we were pledged from this time henceforth to

make common cause together in one of the most laudable and worthy of human objects.

Ladies and gentlemen, a common cause must be made in such a design as that which brings us together this

night; for without it, nothing can be done, but with it, everything. It is a common cause of right, God knows;

for it is idle to suppose that the advantages of such an institution as the Glasgow Athenaeum will stop within

its own walls or be confined to its own members. Through all the society of this great and important city,

upwards to the highest and downwards to the lowest, it must, I know, be felt for good. Downward in a clearer

perception of, and sympathy with, those social miseries which can be alleviated, and those wideopen doors

to vice and crime that can be shut and barred; and upward in a greater intelligence, increased efficiency, and

higher knowledge, of all who partake of its benefits themselves, or who communicate, as all must do, in a

greater or less degree, some portion to the circle of relatives or friends in which they move.

Nor, ladies and gentlemen, would I say for any man, however high his social position, or however great his

attainments, that he might not find something to be learnt even from immediate contact with such institutions.

If he only saw the goddess Knowledge coming out of her secluded palaces and high places to mingle with the

throng, and to give them shining glimpses of the delights which were long kept hoarded up, he might learn

something. If he only saw the energy and the courage with which those who earn their daily bread by the

labour of their hands or heads, come night after night, as to a recreation, to that which was, perhaps, the

whole absorbing business of his youth, there might still be something very wholesome for him to learn. But

when he could see in such places their genial and reviving influences, their substituting of the contemplation

of the beauties of nature and art, and of the wisdom of great men, for mere sensual enjoyment or stupid

idleness at any rate he would learn this that it is at once the duty and the interest of all good members of

I took occasion to say at an Athenaeum in Yorkshire a few weeks since, and I think it a point most important

to be borne in mind on such commemorations as these, that when such societies are objected to, or are

decried on the ground that in the views of the objectors, education among the people has not succeeded, the

term education is used with not the least reference to its real meaning, and is wholly misunderstood. Mere

reading and writing is not education; it would be quite as reasonable to call bricks and mortar architecture

oils and colours art reeds and catgut music or the child's spellingbooks the works of Shakespeare,

Milton, or Bacon as to call the lowest rudiments of education, education, and to visit on that most abused

and slandered word their failure in any instance; and precisely because they were not education; because,

generally speaking, the word has been understood in that sense a great deal too long; because education for

the business of life, and for the due cultivation of domestic virtues, is at least as important from day to day to

the grown person as to the child; because real education, in the strife and contention for a livelihood, and the

consequent necessity incumbent on a great number of young persons to go into the world when they are very

young, is extremely difficult. It is because of these things that I look upon mechanics' institutions and

athenaeums as vitally important to the wellbeing of society. It is because the rudiments of education may

there be turned to good account in the acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope, faith,

and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because of that, I take it, that you have met in education's

It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf of an infant institution; a remarkably fine

child enough, of a vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself singularly fortunate in knowing it

before its prime, in the hope that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when it has

attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its youth. It has already passed through some of the

disorders to which children are liable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a very meritorious character, but of

rather a weak constitution, and which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a destructive

habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a

sea of troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its pulse has been exceedingly low, being

only 1250, when it was expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have even gone so far as

to walk off once or twice in the melancholy belief that it was dead. Through all that, assisted by the

indomitable energy of one or two nurses, to whom it can never be sufficiently grateful, it came triumphantly,

and now, of all the youthful members of its family I ever saw, it has the strongest attitude, the healthiest look,

the brightest and most cheerful air. I find the institution nobly lodged; I find it with a readingroom, a

coffeeroom, and a newsroom; I find it with lectures given and in progress, in sound, useful and

wellselected subjects; I find it with morning and evening classes for mathematics, logic, grammar, music,

French, German, Spanish, and Italian, attended by upwards of five hundred persons; but, best and first of all

and what is to me more satisfactory than anything else in the history of the institution, I find that all, this has

been mainly achieved by the young men of Glasgow themselves, with very little assistance. And, ladies and

gentlemen, as the axiom, "Heaven helps those who help themselves," is truer in no case than it is in this, I

look to the young men of Glasgow, from such a past and such a present, to a noble future. Everything that has

been done in any other athenaeum, I confidently expect to see done here; and when that shall be the case, and

when there shall be great cheap schools in connexion with the institution, and when it has bound together for

ever all its friends, and brought over to itself all those who look upon it as an objectionable institution, then,

and not till then, I hope the young men of Glasgow will rest from their labours, and think their study done.

If the young men of Glasgow want any stimulus or encouragement in this wise, they have one beside them in

the presence of their fair townswomen, which is irresistible. It is a most delightful circumstance to me, and

one fraught with inestimable benefits to institutions of this kind, that at a meeting of this nature those who in

all things are our best examples, encouragers, and friends, are not excluded. The abstract idea of the Graces

was in ancient times associated with those arts which refine the human understanding; and it is pleasant to see

now, in the rolling of the world, the Graces popularising the practice of those arts by their example, and

I am happy to know that in the Glasgow Athenaeum there is a peculiar bond of union between the institution

and the fairest part of creation. I understand that the necessary addition to the small library of books being

difficult and expensive to make, the ladies have generally resolved to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the

proceeds to this admirable purpose; and I learn with no less pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in a graceful

and womanly sense of the excellence of this design, has consented that the bazaar shall be held under her

royal patronage. I can only say, that if you do not find something very noble in your books after this, you are

much duller students than I take you to be. The ladies the single ladies, at least however disinterested I

know they are by sex and nature, will, I hope, resolve to have some of the advantages of these books, by

never marrying any but members of the Athenaeum. It seems to me it ought to be the pleasantest library in

Hazlitt says, in speaking of some of the graceful fancies of some familiar writer of fiction, "How long since I

first became acquainted with these characters; what oldfashioned friends they seem; and yet I am not tired

of them like so many other friends, nor they of me." In this case the books will not only possess all the

attractions of their own friendships and charms, but also the manifold I may say womanfold associations

connected with their donors. I can imagine how, in fact, from these fanciful associations, some fair Glasgow

widow may be taken for the remoter one whom Sir Roger de Coverley could not forget; I can imagine how

Sophia's muff may be seen and loved, but not by Tom Jones, going down the High Street on any winter day;

or I can imagine the student finding in every fair form the exact counterpart of the Glasgow Athenaeum, and

taking into consideration the history of Europe without the consent of Sheriff Alison. I can imagine, in short,

how through all the facts and fictions of this library, these ladies will be always active, and that

It seems to me to be a moral, delightful, and happy chance, that this meeting has been held at this genial

season of the year, when a new time is, as it were, opening before us, and when we celebrate the birth of that

divine and blessed Teacher, who took the highest knowledge into the humblest places, and whose great

system comprehended all mankind. I hail it as a most auspicious omen, at this time of the year, when many

scattered friends and families are reassembled, for the members of this institution to be calling men together

from all quarters, with a brotherly view to the general good, and a view to the general improvement; as I

consider that such designs are practically worthy of the faith we hold, and a practical remembrance of the

words, "On earth peace, and good will toward men." I hope that every year which dawns on your Institution,

will find it richer in its means of usefulness, and grayerheaded in the honour and respect it has gained. It can

hardly speak for itself more appropriately than in the words of an English writer, when contemplating the

[Mr. Dickens concluded by quoting the last three stanzas of Southey's poem, THE HOLLY TREE.

In acknowledging a vote of thanks proposed by Sir Archibald (then Mr.) Alison, Mr. Dickens said:]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am no stranger and I say it with the deepest gratitude to the warmth of

Scottish hearts; but the warmth of your present welcome almost deprives me of any hope of acknowledging

it. I will not detain you any longer at this late hour; let it suffice to assure you, that for taking the part with

which I have been honoured in this festival, I have been repaid a thousandfold by your abundant kindness,

and by the unspeakable gratification it has afforded me. I hope that, before many years are past, we may have

another meeting in public, when we shall rejoice at the immense progress your institution will have made in

the meantime, and look back upon this night with new pleasure and satisfaction. I shall now, in conclusion,

repeat most heartily and fervently the quotation of Dr. Ewing, the late Provost of Glasgow, which Bailie

Nicol Jarvie, himself "a Glasgow body," observed was "elegantly putten round the town's arms."

[The Sixth Annual Dinner of the General Theatrical Fund was held at the London Tavern on the above date.

Mr. Charles Dickens occupied the chair, and in giving the toast of the evening said:]

I HAVE so often had the satisfaction of bearing my testimony, in this place, to the usefulness of the excellent

Institution in whose behalf we are assembled, that I should be really sensible of the disadvantage of having

now nothing to say in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I were not well assured that there is really

nothing which needs be said. I have to appeal to you on the old grounds, and no ingenuity of mine could

render those grounds of greater weight than they have hitherto successfully proved to you.

Although the General Theatrical Fund Association, unlike many other public societies and endowments, is

represented by no building, whether of stone, or brick, or glass, like that astonishing evidence of the skill and

energy of my friend Mr. Paxton, which all the world is now called upon to admire, and the great merit of

which, as you learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down long before it was built, and

yet that it would by no means consent to doing so although, I say, this Association possesses no

architectural home, it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests on as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front,

as any building, in the world. And the best and the utmost that its exponent and its advocate can do, standing

here, is to point it out to those who gather round it, and to say, "judge for yourselves."

It may not, however, be improper for me to suggest to that portion of the company whose previous

acquaintance with it may have been limited, what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are

confined to a small and exclusive body of actors. It is a society whose claims are always preferred in the

name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of theatrical things entirely

past and gone, and no more suited to present theatrical requirements than a string of pack horses would be

suited to the conveyance of traffic between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentleman, with the

gout in his vitals, brushed and gotup once a year to look as vigorous as possible, and brought out for a

public airing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who afterwards doublelock the

streetdoor upon the poor relations. It is not a theatrical association which insists that no actor can share its

bounty who has not walked so many years on those boards where the English tongue is never heard

between the little bars of music in an aviary of singing birds, to which the unwieldy Swan of Avon is never

admitted that bounty which was gathered in the name and for the elevation of an allembracing art.

No, if there be such things, this thing is not of that kind. This is a theatrical association, expressly adapted to

the wants and to the means of the whole theatrical profession all over England. It is a society in which the

word exclusiveness is wholly unknown. It is a society which includes every actor, whether he be Benedict or

Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Bandit, or the courtphysician, or, in the one person, the whole King's army. He

may do the "light business," or the "heavy," or the comic, or the eccentric. He may be the captain who courts

the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years

older than his time. Or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty

in the family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake hands with

everybody between all the verses. Or he may be the baron who gives the fete, and who sits uneasily on the

sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the fete is going on. Or he may be the peasant at the fete who

comes on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass upside

down before he begins to drink out of it. Or he may be the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house

where the evening party is going on. Or he may be the gentleman who issues out of the house on the false

alarm, and is precipitated into the area. Or, to come to the actresses, she may be the fairy who resides for ever

in a revolving star with an occasional visit to a bower or a palace. Or the actor may be the armed head of the

witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom I have observed in country places, that

he is much less like the notion formed from the description of Hopkins than the Malcolm or Donalbain of the

previous scenes. This society, in short, says, "Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in

your profession never so high, or never so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the means

This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a class of men to take care of their own

interests, and giving a continuous security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and effort. The actor by

the means of this society obtains his own right, to no man's wrong; and when, in old age, or in disastrous

times, he makes his claim on the institution, he is enabled to say, "I am neither a beggar, nor a suppliant. I am

but reaping what I sowed long ago." And therefore it is that I cannot hold out to you that in assisting this fund

you are doing an act of charity in the common acceptation of that phrase. Of all the abuses of that much

abused term, none have more raised my indignation than what I have heard in this room in past times, in

reference to this institution. I say, if you help this institution you will be helping the wagoner who has

resolutely put his own shoulder to the wheel, and who has NOT stuck idle in the mud. In giving this aid you

will be doing an act of justice, and you will be performing an act of gratitude; and this is what I solicit from

you; but I will not so far wrong those who are struggling manfully for their own independence as to pretend

I have used the word gratitude; and let any man ask his own heart, and confess if he have not some grateful

acknowledgments for the actor's art? Not peculiarly because it is a profession often pursued, and as it were

marked, by poverty and misfortune for other callings, God knows, have their distresses nor because the

actor has sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part

before us for all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do violence to our feelings and to hide our hearts in

fighting this great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and responsibilities. But the art of the actor

excites reflections, sombre or grotesque, awful or humorous, which we are all familiar with. If any man were

to tell me that he denied his acknowledgments to the stage, I would simply put to him one question whether

If you, gentlemen, will but carry back your recollection to that great night, and call to mind the bright and

harmless world which then opened to your view, we shall, I think, hear favourably of the effect upon your

This is the sixth year of meetings of this kind the sixth time we have had this fine child down after dinner.

His nurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, who has an excellent character from several

places, will presently report to you that his chest is perfectly sound, and that his general health is in the most

thriving condition. Long may it be so; long may it thrive and grow; long may we meet (it is my sincere wish)

to exchange our congratulations on its prosperity; and longer than the line of Banquo may be that line of

figures which, as its patriotic share in the national debt, a century hence shall be stated by the Governor and

[The Corporation of the Royal Literary Fund was established in 1790, its object being to administer

assistance to authors of genius and learning, who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities, or

deprived, by enfeebled faculties or declining life, of the power of literary exertion. At the annual general

meeting held at the house of the society on the above date, the following speech was made by Mr. Charles

SIR, I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell, who, in the profession of literature, represents upon

"The last rose of summer Stands blooming alone, While all its companions Are faded and gone,"

into the very prickly bramblebush with which he has ingeniously contrived to beset this question. In the

remarks I have to make I shall confine myself to four points: 1. That the committee find themselves in the

painful condition of not spending enough money, and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of

spending more. 2. That with regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history, that the house for which

Mr. Williams was so anxious was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and which the

administrators of the fund decline to recognise. 3. That, in Mr. Bell's endeavours to remove the Artists' Fund

from the ground of analogy it unquestionably occupies with reference to this fund, by reason of their

continuing periodical relief to the same persons, I beg to tell Mr. Bell what every gentleman at that table

knows that it is the business of this fund to relieve over and over again the same people.

MR. C. DICKENS: I can only oppose to that statement my own experience when I sat on that committee, and

when I have known persons relieved on many consecutive occasions without further inquiry being made. As

to the suggestion that we should select the items of expenditure that we complain of, I think it is according to

all experience that we should first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too large. If that be done by the

meeting, then I will proceed to the selection of the separate items. Now, in rising to support this resolution, I

may state at once that I have scarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy to think it will not.

Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of the resolution's case that it should not be carried, because it will

show the determination of the fund's managers. Nothing can possibly be stronger in favour of the resolution

than that the statement should go forth to the world that twice within twelve months the attention of the

committee has been called to this great expenditure, and twice the committee have considered that it was not

unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger case for the resolution than this statement of fact as to the

expenditure going forth to the public accompanied by the committee's assertion that it is reasonable. Now, to

separate this question from details, let us remember what the committee and their supporters asserted last

year, and, I hope, will reassert this year. It seems to be rather the model kind of thing than otherwise now

that if you get 100 pounds you are to spend 40 pounds in management; and if you get 1000 pounds, of course

you may spend 400 pounds in giving the rest away. Now, in case there should be any illconditioned people

here who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I will give you my experience. I went

last year to a highly respectable place of resort, Willis's Rooms, in St. James's, to a meeting of this fund. My

original intention was to hear all I could, and say as little as possible. Allowing for the absence of the younger

and fairer portion of the creation, the general appearance of the place was something like Almack's in the

morning. A number of stately old dowagers sat in a row on one side, and old gentlemen on the other. The ball

was opened with due solemnity by a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the secretary, at which the

audience were much affected. Then another party advanced, who, I am sorry to say, was only a member of

the House of Commons, and he took possession of the floor. To him, however, succeeded a lord, then a

bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord, then one or two celebrities from the City and Stock Exchange,

and at last a gentleman, who made a fortune by the success of "Candide," sustained the part of Pangloss, and

spoke much of what he evidently believed to be the very best management of this best of all possible funds.

Now it is in this fondness for being stupendously genteel, and keeping up fine appearances this vulgar and

common social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price, that the money goes. The last time you

got a distinguished writer at a public meeting, and he was called on to address you somewhere amongst the

small hours, he told you he felt like the man in plush who was permitted to sweep the stage down after all the

other people had gone. If the founder of this society were here, I should think he would feel like a sort of Rip

van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years and woke up to find his fund still

lying under the feet of people who did nothing for it instead of being emancipated and standing alone long

ago. This Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for show, and the officer who inhabits it. (I

mean, of course, in his official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.) When one enters the

house it appears to be haunted by a series of mysteriouslooking ghosts, who glide about engaged in some

extraordinary occupation, and, after the approved fashion of ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their

business. What are all these meetings and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I say, as a writer by

profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a

preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have a far better knowledge of the cases coming

before the board than can ever be attained by that committee. Further, I say openly and plainly, that this fund

is pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of being quietly administered at small

expense; and that the secrecy to which it lays claim as its greatest attribute, is not kept; for through those "two

respectable householders," to whom reference must be made, the names of the most deserving applicants are

to numbers of people perfectly well known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact

as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are justifiable, becoming, or decent. I beg most

earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that must now decide,

and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is for, and what it is not for. The question raised by the

resolution is whether this is a public corporation for the relief of men of genius and learning, or whether it is a

snug, traditional, and conventional party, bent upon maintaining its own usages with a vast amount of pride;

upon its own annual puffery at costly dinnertables, and upon a course of expensive toadying to a number of

distinguished individuals. This is the question which you cannot this day escape.

[At the fourth anniversary dinner of the Warehousemen and Clerks Schools, which took place on Thursday

evening, Nov. 5th, 1857, at the London Tavern, and was very numerously attended, Mr. Charles Dickens

occupied the chair. On the subject which had brought the company together Mr. Dickens spoke as follows:]

I MUST now solicit your attention for a few minutes to the cause of your assembling together the main and

real object of this evening's gathering; for I suppose we are all agreed that the motto of these tables is not "Let

us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die;" but, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we live." It is because a

great and good work is to live tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and to live a greater and better

life with every succeeding tomorrow, that we eat and drink here at all. Conspicuous on the card of

admission to this dinner is the word "Schools." This set me thinking this morning what are the sorts of

schools that I don't like. I found them on consideration, to be rather numerous. I don't like to begin with, and

to begin as charity does at home I don't like the sort of school to which I once went myself the respected

proprietor of which was by far the most ignorant man I have ever had the pleasure to know; one of the

worsttempered men perhaps that ever lived, whose business it was to make as much out of us and put as

little into us as possible, and who sold us at a figure which I remember we used to delight to estimate, as

amounting to exactly 2 pounds 4s. 6d. per head. I don't like that sort of school, because I don't see what

business the master had to be at the top of it instead of the bottom, and because I never could understand the

wholesomeness of the moral preached by the abject appearance and degraded condition of the teachers who

plainly said to us by their looks every day of their lives, "Boys, never be learned; whatever you are, above all

things be warned from that in time by our sunken cheeks, by our poor pimply noses, by our meagre diet, by

our acidbeer, and by our extraordinary suits of clothes, of which no human being can say whether they are

snuffcoloured turned black, or black turned snuffcoloured, a point upon which we ourselves are perfectly

unable to offer any ray of enlightenment, it is so very long since they were undarned and new." I do not like

that sort of school, because I have never yet lost my ancient suspicion touching that curious coincidence that

the boy with four brothers to come always got the prizes. In fact, and short, I do not like that sort of school,

which is a pernicious and abominable humbug, altogether. Again, ladies and gentlemen, I don't like that sort

of school a ladies' school with which the other school used to dance on Wednesdays, where the young

ladies, as I look back upon them now, seem to me always to have been in new stays and disgrace the latter

concerning a place of which I know nothing at this day, that bounds Timbuctoo on the northeast and

where memory always depicts the youthful enthraller of my first affection as for ever standing against a wall,

in a curious machine of wood, which confined her innocent feet in the first dancing position, while those

arms, which should have encircled my jacket, those precious arms, I say, were pinioned behind her by an

instrument of torture called a backboard, fixed in the manner of a double direction post. Again, I don't like

that sort of school, of which we have a notable example in Kent, which was established ages ago by worthy

scholars and good men long deceased, whose munificent endowments have been monstrously perverted from

their original purpose, and which, in their distorted condition, are struggled for and fought over with the most

indecent pertinacity. Again, I don't like that sort of school and I have seen a great many such in these latter

times where the bright childish imagination is utterly discouraged, and where those bright childish faces,

which it is so very good for the wisest among us to remember in after life when the world is too much with

us, early and late are gloomily and grimly scared out of countenance; where I have never seen among the

pupils, whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots and small calculating machines. Again, I don't by any

means like schools in leather breeches, and with mortified straw baskets for bonnets, which file along the

streets in long melancholy rows under the escort of that surprising British monster a beadle, whose system

of instruction, I am afraid, too often presents that happy union of sound with sense, of which a very

remarkable instance is given in a grave report of a trustworthy school inspector, to the effect that a boy in

great repute at school for his learning, presented on his slate, as one of the ten commandments, the perplexing

prohibition, "Thou shalt not commit doldrum." Ladies and gentlemen, I confess, also, that I don't like those

schools, even though the instruction given in them be gratuitous, where those sweet little voices which ought

to be heard speaking in very different accents, anathematise by rote any human being who does not hold what

is taught there. Lastly, I do not like, and I did not like some years ago, cheap distant schools, where neglected

children pine from year to year under an amount of neglect, want, and youthful misery far too sad even to be

And now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will permit me to sketch in a few words the sort of school that I

do like. It is a school established by the members of an industrious and useful order, which supplies the

comforts and graces of life at every familiar turning in the road of our existence; it is a school established by

them for the Orphan and Necessitous Children of their own brethren and sisterhood; it is a place giving an

education worthy of them an education by them invented, by them conducted, by them watched over; it is a

place of education where, while the beautiful history of the Christian religion is daily taught, and while the

life of that Divine Teacher who Himself took little children on His knees is daily studied, no sectarian illwill

nor narrow human dogma is permitted to darken the face of the clear heaven which they disclose. It is a

children's school, which is at the same time no less a children's home, a home not to be confided to the care of

cold or ignorant strangers, nor, by the nature of its foundation, in the course of ages to pass into hands that

have as much natural right to deal with it as with the peaks of the highest mountains or with the depths of the

sea, but to be from generation to generation administered by men living in precisely such homes as those poor

children have lost; by men always bent upon making that replacement, such a home as their own dear

children might find a happy refuge in if they themselves were taken early away. And I fearlessly ask you, is

this a design which has any claim to your sympathy? Is this a sort of school which is deserving of your

This is the design, this is the school, whose strong and simple claim I have to lay before you tonight. I must

particularly entreat you not to suppose that my fancy and unfortunate habit of fiction has anything to do with

the picture I have just presented to you. It is sober matter of fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks' Schools,

established for the maintaining, clothing, and educating of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those

employed in the wholesale trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom, are, in fact, what I have just

described. These schools for both sexes were originated only four years ago. In the first six weeks of the

undertaking the young men of themselves and quite unaided, subscribed the large sum of 3,000 pounds. The

schools have been opened only three years, they have now on their foundation thirty nine children, and in a

few days they will have six more, making a total of fortyfive. They have been most munificently assisted by

the heads of great mercantile houses, numerously represented, I am happy to say, around me, and they have a

funded capital of almost 14,000 pounds. This is wonderful progress, but the aim must still be upwards, the

motto always "Excelsior." You do not need to be told that fiveandforty children can form but a very small

proportion of the Orphan and Necessitous Children of those who have been entrusted with the wholesale

trades and manufactures of the United Kingdom: you do not require to be informed that the house at

Newcross, rented for a small term of years, in which the schools are at present established, can afford but

most imperfect accommodation for such a breadth of design. To carry this good work through the two

remaining degrees of better and best there must be more work, more cooperation, more friends, more

money. Then be the friends and give the money. Before I conclude, there is one other feature in these schools

which I would commend to your special attention and approval. Their benefits are reserved for the children of

subscribers; that is to say, it is an essential principle of the institution that it must help those whose parents

have helped them, and that the unfortunate children whose father has been so lax, or so criminal, as to

withhold a subscription so exceedingly small that when divided by weeks it amounts to only threepence

weekly, cannot, in justice, be allowed to jostle out and shoulder away the happier children, whose father has

had that little forethought, or done that little kindness which was requisite to secure for them the benefits of

the institution. I really cannot believe that there will long be any such defaulting parents. I cannot believe that

any of the intelligent young men who are engaged in the wholesale houses will long neglect this obvious, this

easy duty. If they suppose that the objects of their love, born or unborn, will never want the benefits of the

charity, that may be a fatal and blind mistake it can never be an excuse, for, supposing them to be right in

their anticipation, they should do what is asked for the sake of their friends and comrades around them,

Ladies and gentlemen, this little "labour of love" of mine is now done. I most heartily wish that I could charm

you now not to see me, not to think of me, not to hear me I most heartily wish that I could make you see in

my stead the multitude of innocent and bereaved children who are looking towards these schools, and

entreating with uplifted hands to be let in. A very famous advocate once said, in speaking of his fears of

failure when he had first to speak in court, being very poor, that he felt his little children tugging at his skirts,

and that recovered him. Will you think of the number of little children who are tugging at my skirts, when I

ask you, in their names, on their behalf, and in their little persons, and in no strength of my own, to encourage

At a later period of the evening Mr. Dickens proposed the health of the President of the Institution, Lord John

Russell. He said he should do nothing so superfluous and so unnecessary as to descant upon his lordship's

many faithful, long, and great public services, upon the honour and integrity with which he had pursued his

straightforward public course through every difficulty, or upon the manly, gallant, and courageous character,

which rendered him certain, in the eyes alike of friends and opponents, to rise with every rising occasion, and

which, like the seal of Solomon, in the old Arabian story, enclosed in a not very large casket the soul of a

giant. In answer to loud cheers, he said he had felt perfectly certain, that that would be the response for in no

English assembly that he had ever seen was it necessary to do more than mention the name of Lord John

[The fortyeighth Anniversary of the establishment of the Artists' Benevolent Fund took place on the above

date at the Freemasons' Tavern. The chair was taken by Mr. Charles Dickens, who, after having disposed of

the preliminary toasts with his usual felicity, proceeded to advocate the claims of the Institution in whose

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, There is an absurd theatrical story which was once told to me by a dear and

valued friend, who has now passed from this sublunary stage, and which is not without its moral as applied to

myself, in my present presidential position. In a certain theatrical company was included a man, who on

occasions of emergency was capable of taking part in the whole round of the British drama, provided he was

allowed to use his own language in getting through the dialogue. It happened one night that Reginald, in the

CASTLE SPECTRE, was taken ill, and this veteran of a hundred characters was, of course, called up for the

vacant part. He responded with his usual promptitude, although knowing nothing whatever of the character,

but while they were getting him into the dress, he expressed a not unreasonable wish to know in some vague

way what the part was about. He was not particular as to details, but in order that he might properly pourtray

his sufferings, he thought he should have some slight inkling as to what really had happened to him. As, for

example, what murders he had committed, whose father he was, of what misfortunes he was the victim, in

short, in a general way to know why he was in that place at all. They said to him, "Here you are, chained in a

dungeon, an unhappy father; you have been here for seventeen years, during which time you have never seen

your daughter; you have lived upon bread and water, and, in consequence, are extremely weak, and suffer

from occasional lowness of spirits." "All right," said the actor of universal capabilities, "ring up." When he

was discovered to the audience, he presented an extremely miserable appearance, was very favourably

received, and gave every sign of going on well, until, through some mental confusion as to his instructions,

he opened the business of the act by stating in pathetic terms, that he had been confined in that dungeon

seventeen years, during which time he had not tasted a morsel of food, to which circumstance he was inclined

to attribute the fact of his being at that moment very much out of condition. The audience, thinking this

statement exceedingly improbable, declined to receive it, and the weight of that speech hung round him until

Now I, too, have received instructions for the part I have the honour of performing before you, and it behoves

both you and me to profit by the terrible warning I have detailed, while I endeavour to make the part I have

As I am going to propose to you that we should now begin to connect the business with the pleasure of the

evening, by drinking prosperity to the Artists' Benevolent Fund, it becomes important that we should know

what that fund is. It is an Association supported by the voluntary gifts of those who entertain a critical and

admiring estimation of art, and has for its object the granting of annuities to the widows and children of

deceased artists of artists who have been unable in their lives to make any provision for those dear objects

of their love surviving themselves. Now it is extremely important to observe that this institution of an Artists'

Benevolent Fund, which I now call on you to pledge, has connected with it, and has arisen out of another

artists' association, which does not ask you for a health, which never did, and never will ask you for a health,

which is selfsupporting, and which is entirely maintained by the prudence and providence of its three

hundred artist members. That fund, which is called the Artists' Annuity Fund, is, so to speak, a joint and

mutual Assurance Company against infirmity, sickness, and age. To the benefits it affords every one of its

members has an absolute right, a right, be it remembered, produced by timely thrift and self denial, and not

assisted by appeals to the charity or compassion of any human being. On that fund there are, if I remember a

right, some seventeen annuitants who are in the receipt of eleven hundred ayear, the proceeds of their own

selfsupporting Institution. In recommending to you this benevolent fund, which is not self supporting, they

address you, in effect, in these words: "We ask you to help these widows and orphans, because we show you

we have first helped ourselves. These widows and orphans may be ours or they may not be ours; but in any

case we will prove to you to a certainty that we are not so many wagoners calling upon Jupiter to do our

work, because we do our own work; each has his shoulder to the wheel; each, from year to year, has had his

shoulder set to the wheel, and the prayer we make to Jupiter and all the gods is simply this that this fact

may be remembered when the wagon has stopped for ever, and the spent and wornout wagoner lies lifeless

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I most particularly wish to impress on you the strength of this appeal. I am a painter,

a sculptor, or an engraver, of average success. I study and work here for no immense return, while life and

health, while hand and eye are mine. I prudently belong to the Annuity Fund, which in sickness, old age, and

infirmity, preserves me from want. I do my duty to those who are depending on me while life remains; but

This is the case with the Artists' Benevolent Fund, and in stating this I am only the mouthpiece of three

hundred of the trade, who in truth stands as independent before you as if they were three hundred Cockers all

regulated by the Gospel according to themselves. There are in existence three artists' funds, which ought

never to be mentioned without respect. I am an officer of one of them, and can speak from knowledge; but on

this occasion I address myself to a case for which there is no provision. I address you on behalf of those

professors of the fine arts who have made provision during life, and in submitting to you their claims I am

When I add that this Benevolent Fund makes no pretensions to gentility, squanders no treasure in keeping up

appearances, that it considers that the money given for the widow and the orphan, should really be held for

the widow and the orphan, I think I have exhausted the case, which I desire most strenuously to commend to

Perhaps you will allow me to say one last word. I will not consent to present to you the professors of Art as a

set of helpless babies, who are to be held up by the chin; I present them as an energetic and persevering class

of men, whose incomes depend on their own faculties and personal exertions; and I also make so bold as to

present them as men who in their vocation render good service to the community. I am strongly disposed to

believe there are very few debates in Parliament so important to the public welfare as a really good picture. I

have also a notion that any number of bundles of the driest legal chaff that ever was chopped would be

cheaply expended for one really meritorious engraving. At a highly interesting annual festival at which I have

the honour to assist, and which takes place behind two fountains, I sometimes observe that great ministers of

state and other such exalted characters have a strange delight in rather ostentatiously declaring that they have

no knowledge whatever of art, and particularly of impressing on the company that they have passed their

lives in severe studies. It strikes me when I hear these things as if these great men looked upon the arts as a

sort of dancing dogs, or Punch's show, to be turned to for amusement when one has nothing else to do. Now I

always take the opportunity on these occasions of entertaining my humble opinion that all this is complete

"bosh;" and of asserting to myself my strong belief that the neighbourhoods of Trafalgar Square, or Suffolk

Street, rightly understood, are quite as important to the welfare of the empire as those of Downing Street, or

Westminster Hall. Ladies and Gentlemen, on these grounds, and backed by the recommendation of three

hundred artists in favour of the Benevolent Fund, I beg to propose its prosperity as a toast for your adoption.

[With the "Christmas Carol" and "The Trial from Pickwick," Mr. Charles Dickens brought to a brilliant close

the memorable series of public readings which have for sixteen years proved to audiences unexampled in

numbers, the source of the highest intellectual enjoyment. Every portion of available space in the building

was, of course, last night occupied some time before the appointed hour; but could the St. James's Hall have

been specially enlarged for the occasion to the dimensions of Salisbury Plain, it is doubtful whether sufficient

room would even then have been provided for all anxious to seize the last chance of hearing the distinguished

novelist give his own interpretation of the characters called into existence by his own creative pen. As if

determined to convince his auditors that, whatever reason had influenced his determination, physical

exhaustion was not amongst them, Mr. Dickens never read with greater spirit and energy. His voice to the last

retained its distinctive clearness, and the transitions of tone, as each personage in the story, conjured up by a

word, rose vividly before the eye, seemed to be more marvellous than ever. The vast assemblage, hushed into

breathless attention, suffered not a syllable to escape the ear, and the rich humour and deep pathos of one of

the most delightful books ever written found once again the fullest appreciation. The usual burst of merriment

responsive to the blithe description of Bob Cratchit's Christmas day, and the wonted sympathy with the

crippled child "Tiny Tim," found prompt expression, and the general delight at hearing of Ebenezer Scrooge's

reformation was only checked by the saddening remembrance that with it the last strain of the "carol" was

dying away. After the "Trial from Pickwick," in which the speeches of the opposing counsel, and the owlish

gravity of the judge, seemed to be delivered and depicted with greater dramatic power than ever, the applause

of the audience rang for several minutes through the hall, and when it had subsided, Mr. Dickens, with

evidently strong emotion, but in his usual distinct and expressive manner, spoke as follows:]

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 cherished ideas

before you for your recognition, and, in closely observing your reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of

artistic delight and instruction which, perhaps, 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 a 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 floodtide of

your favour, to retire upon those older associations between us, which date from much further back than

these, and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art that first brought us together. Ladies and

gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new

series of readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from these garish lights I vanish now for

[Amidst repeated acclamations of the most enthusiastic description, whilst hats and handkerchiefs were

waving in every part of the hall, Mr. Charles Dickens retired, withdrawing with him one of the greatest

[The annual dinner in aid of the funds of the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution was held on

the above evening, at the Freemason's Tavern. Mr. Charles Dickens presided, and was supported by the

The Chairman said that if the approved order of their proceedings had been observed, the Corporation of the

City of London would no doubt have considered themselves snubbed if they were not toasted by themselves.

He was sure that a distinguished member of the Corporation who was present would tell the company what

the Corporation were going to do; and he had not the slightest doubt they were going to do something highly

creditable to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the whole metropolis; and if the secret were not

at present locked up in the blue chamber, they would be all deeply obliged to the gentleman who would

immediately follow him, if he let them into it in the same confidence as he had observed with respect to the

Corporation of the City of London being snubbed. He begged to give the toast of "The Corporation of the

Mr. Alderman Cotton, in replying to the toast, said for once, and once only, had their chairman said an

unkind word about the Corporation of London. He had always reckoned Mr. Dickens to be one of the

warmest friends of the Corporation; and remembering that he (Mr. Dickens) did really go through a Lord

Mayor's Show in a Lord Mayor's carriage, if he had not felt himself quite a Lord Mayor, he must have at least

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, You receive me with so much cordiality that I fear you believe that I really

did once sit in a Lord Mayor's state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received from

Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour. Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed a

Lord Mayor's show except from the point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now,

ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it

is to you that I occupy this chair tonight, because, having filled it on several previous occasions for the

society on whose behalf we are assembled, and having said everything that I could think of to say about it,

and being, moreover, the president of the institution itself, I am placed to night in the modest position of a

host who is not so much to display himself as to call out his guests perhaps even to try to induce some

among them to occupy his place on another occasion. And, therefore, you may be safely sure that, like

Falstaff, but with a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of speaking in

others than to speak myself to night. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy

of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and

discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try

It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman's calling that no toast we have drunk tonight

and no toast we shall drink tonight and no toast we might, could, should, or would drink tonight, is

separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all possible subjects of human interest which he delivers

at our doors every day. Further, it may be worthy the consideration of everybody here who has talked

cheerfully to his or her neighbour since we have sat down at the table, what in the name of Heaven should we

have talked about, and how on earth could we have possibly got on, if our newsman had only for one single

day forgotten us. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is not by any means in the habit of forgetting

us, let us try to form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us remember that his work is very

arduous; that it occupies him early and late; that the profits he derives from us are at the best very small; that

the services he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, his little capital is exposed to all sorts of

mischances, anxieties, and hazards; and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to all manner of

Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, which originated by chance. The subject was,

What was the most absorbing and longestlived passion in the human breast? What was the passion so

powerful that it would almost induce the generous to be mean, the careless to be cautious, the guileless to be

deeply designing, and the dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and great acuteness,

who was one of the company, considerably surprised us by saying with the greatest confidence that the

There had recently been a terrible shipwreck, and very few of the surviving sailors had escaped in an open

boat. One of these on making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper office, with his

story of how he had seen the ship go down before his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most terrible

contention between the powers of fire and water for the destruction of that ship and of every one on board. He

had rowed away among the floating, dying, and the sinking dead. He had floated by day, and he had frozen

by night, with no shelter and no food, and, as he told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes about the

room. When he had finished, and the tale had been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed,

and soothed, and asked if anything could be done for him. Even within him that master passion was so strong

that he immediately replied he should like an order for the play. My friend the editor certainly thought that

was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of experience he had witnessed an incurable

amount of selfprostration and abasement having no outer object, and that almost invariably on the part of

This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this faith until some years ago it happened

upon a stormy night I was kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little outof theway town it

represented by a sprightly and vivacious newsman, to whom I propounded, as we went along under my

umbrella he being most excellent company this old question, what was the one all absorbing passion of

the human soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it certainly was the passion for getting your

newspaper in advance of your fellowcreatures; also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door

at exactly the same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles off; and, finally, the invincible

determination on the part of both men not to believe the time was up when the boy called.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying this experience with my friends of the

managing committee, but I have no doubt from its reception tonight that my friend the newsman was

perfectly right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an assurance that among a little

body of working men there is a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy which is worth much to all men, or

they would herd with wolves the newsvendors once upon a time established the Benevolent and Provident

Institution, and here it is. Under the Provident head, certain small annuities are granted to old and

hardworking subscribers. Under the Benevolent head, relief is afforded to temporary and proved distress.

Under both heads, I am bound to say the help rendered is very humble and very sparing, but if you like it to

be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a

deal of good. Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly administered; and it is encumbered with no

You know upon an old authority, that you may believe anything except facts and figures, but you really may

believe that during the last year we have granted 100 pounds in pensions, and some 70 pounds in temporary

relief, and we have invested in Government securities some 400 pounds. But, touching this matter of

investments, it was suggested at the anniversary dinner, on the high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin

Phillips that we might grant more pensions and invest less money. We urged, on the other hand, that we

wished our pensions to be certain and unchangeable which of course they must be if they are always paid

out of our Government interest and never out of our capital. However, so amiable is our nature, that we

profess our desire to grant more pensions and to invest more money too. The more you give us to night

again, so amiable is our nature, the more we promise to do in both departments. That the newsman's work has

greatly increased, and that it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you may infer from one fact,

not to mention that we live in railway times. It is stated in Mitchell's "Newspaper Press Directory," that

during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers which appeared in London had more than

doubled, while the increase in the number of people among whom they were disseminated was probably

Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated the newsman's simple case. I leave it in your hands. Within the last year

the institution has had the good fortune to attract the sympathy and gain the support of the eminent man of

letters I am proud to call my friend, who now represents the great Republic of America at the British Court.

Also it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors and vicepresidents the great name of Longfellow. I

beg to propose to you to drink "Prosperity to the Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution."

[On the evening of the above day the friends and admirers of Mr. Macready entertained him at a public

dinner. Upwards of six hundred gentlemen assembled to do honour to the great actor on his retirement from

the stage. Sir E. B. Lytton took the chair. Among the other speakers were Baron Bunsen, Sir Charles

Eastlake, Mr. Thackeray, Mr. John Forster, Mr. W. J. Fox, and Mr. Charles Dickens, who proposed "The

GENTLEMEN, After all you have already heard, and so rapturously received, I assure you that not even

the warmth of your kind welcome would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence in

the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my reliance on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong

that I am rather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on which I have to throw my little

Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites essential to the perfect realisation of a scene so

unusual and so splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I must say very difficult

requisite, is a man possessing the stronghold in the general remembrance, the indisputable claim on the

general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and much valued friend our guest. The second

requisite is the presence of a body of entertainers, a great multitude of hosts so cheerful and

goodhumoured (under, I am sorry to say, some personal inconvenience), so warmhearted and so nobly in

earnest, as those whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly not the least of these

requisites, is a president who, less by his social position, which he may claim by inheritance, or by fortune,

which may have been adventitiously won, and may be again accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive

genius, shall fitly represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those who unite

in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have found in our chairman of tonight, and I need scarcely add

Many of those who now hear me were present, I daresay, at that memorable scene on Wednesday night last,

when the great vision which had been a delight and a lesson, very often, I daresay, a support and a comfort

to you, which had for many years improved and charmed us, and to which we had looked for an elevated

relief from the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will not stop to inquire whether our guest

may or may not have looked backward, through rather too long a period for us, to some remote and distant

time when he might possibly bear some faroff likeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom Gil Blas once

served. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in the audience of Wednesday to

"And I have brought, Golden opinions from all sorts of people, Which would be worn now in their newest

but I will venture to intimate to those whom I am addressing how in my mind I mainly connect that occasion

with the present. When I looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit hushed into stillness

on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, where men in their shirtsleeves had been

striking out their arms like strong swimmers when I saw that. boisterous human flood become still water in

a moment, and remain so from the opening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the

trustworthiness of an English crowd, and the delusion under which those labour who are apt to disparage and

malign it: it suggested to me that in meeting here tonight we undertook to represent something of the

allpervading feeling of that crowd, through all its intermediate degrees, from the fulldressed lady, with her

diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the prosceniumbox, to the halfundressed gentleman; who bides his

time to take some refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that no one who

could possibly be placed in this chair could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so

well give the crowning grace to our festivities, as one whose comprehensive genius has in his various works

embraced them all, and who has, in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them all at once.

Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have heard this night, what I have seen and known in

the bygone times of Mr. Macready's management, of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of

the association of his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready's zealous and untiring services; but

it may be permitted me to say what, in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in the path we both

tread I have uniformly found him from the first the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to

disparage, ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to

shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his slippers outside a mosque.

There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition to the effect that authors are not a particularly united body,

that they are not invariably and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I must concede halfagrain

or so of truth I to that superstition; but this I know, that there can hardly be that there hardly can have been

among the followers of literature, a man of more high standing farther above these little grudging

jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.

And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my testimony to his great consideration for those evils

which are sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on him. For, in conjunction with some other

gentlemen now present, I have just embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, to smoothe the rugged way

of young labourers, both in literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary means, the

declining years of meritorious age. And if that project prosper as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will

one day be an honour to England where there is now a reproach; originating in his sympathies, being brought

into operation by his activity, and endowed from its very cradle by his generosity. There are many among you

who will have each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman's health, resting his claim probably

upon some of his diversified successes. According to the nature of your reading, some of you will connect

him with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will connect him with comedy, and another with

the romantic passions of the stage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest struggle against those

Again, another's taste will lead him to the contemplation of Rienzi and the streets of Rome; another's to the

rebuilt and repeopled streets of Pompeii; another's to the touching history of the fireside where the Caxton

family learned how to discipline their natures and tame their wild hopes down. But, however various their

feelings and reasons may be, I am sure that with one accord each will help the other, and all will swell the

greeting, with which I shall now propose to you "The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton."

[The members and friends of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association dined together on the above evening at

Gore House, Kensington. The Earl of Carlisle occupied the chair. Mr. Charles Dickens was present, and in

THERE are very few words for me to say upon the needfulness of sanitary reform, or the consequent

usefulness of the Board of Health. That no man can estimate the amount of mischief grown in dirt, that no

man can say the evil stops here or stops there, either in its moral or physical effects, or can deny that it begins

in the cradle and is not at rest in the miserable grave, is as certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be

carried by an easterly wind into Mayfair, or that the furious pestilence raging in St. Giles's no mortal list of

lady patronesses can keep out of Almack's. Fifteen years ago some of the valuable reports of Mr. Chadwick

and Dr. Southwood Smith, strengthening and much enlarging my knowledge, made me earnest in this cause

in my own sphere; and I can honestly declare that the use I have since that time made of my eyes and nose

have only strengthened the conviction that certain sanitary reforms must precede all other social remedies,

and that neither education nor religion can do anything useful until the way has been paved for their

I do not want authority for this opinion: you have heard the speech of the right reverend prelate this evening

a speech which no sanitary reformer can have heard without emotion. Of what avail is it to send missionaries

to the miserable man condemned to work in a foetid court, with every sense bestowed upon him for his health

and happiness turned into a torment, with every month of his life adding to the heap of evils under which he

is condemned to exist? What human sympathy within him is that instructor to address? what natural old

chord within him is he to touch? Is it the remembrance of his children? a memory of destitution, of

sickness, of fever, and of scrofula? Is it his hopes, his latent hopes of immortality? He is so surrounded by

and embedded in material filth, that his soul cannot rise to the contemplation of the great truths of religion.

Or if the case is that of a miserable child bred and nurtured in some noisome, loathsome place, and tempted,

in these better days, into the ragged school, what can a few hours' teaching effect against the everrenewed

lesson of a whole existence? But give them a glimpse of heaven through a little of its light and air; give them

water; help them to be clean; lighten that heavy atmosphere in which their spirits flag and in which they

become the callous things they are; take the body of the dead relative from the close room in which the living

live with it, and where death, being familiar, loses its awe; and then they will be brought willingly to hear of

Him whose thoughts were so much with the poor, and who had compassion for all human suffering.

The toast which I have to propose, The Board of Health, is entitled to all the honour which can be conferred

upon it. We have very near us, in Kensington, a transparent illustration that no very great thing can ever be

accomplished without an immense amount of abuse being heaped upon it. In connexion with the Board of

Health we are always hearing a very large word which is always pronounced with a very great relish the

word centralization. Now I submit that in the time of the cholera we had a pretty good opportunity of judging

between this so called centralization and what I may, I think, call "vestrylisation." I dare say the company

present have read the reports of the Cholera Board of Health, and I daresay they have also read reports of

certain vestries. I have the honour of belonging to a constituency which elected that amazing body, the

Marylebone vestry, and I think that if the company present will look to what was done by the Board of Health

at Glasgow, and then contrast those proceedings with the wonderful cleverness with which affairs were

managed at the same period by my vestry, there will be very little difficulty in judging between them. My

vestry even took upon itself to deny the existence of cholera as a weak invention of the enemy, and that

denial had little or no effect in staying the progress of the disease. We can now contrast what centralization is

as represented by a few noisy and interested gentlemen, and what centralization is when worked out by a

body combining business habits, sound medical and social knowledge, and an earnest sympathy with the

Another objection to the Board of Health is conveyed in a word not so large as the other, "Delay." I would

suggest, in respect to this, that it would be very unreasonable to complain that a first rate chronometer didn't

go when its master had not wound it up. The Board of Health may be excellently adapted for going and very

willing and anxious to go, and yet may not be permitted to go by reason of its lawful master having fallen

into a gentle slumber and forgotten to set it a going. One of the speakers this evening has referred to Lord

Castlereagh's caution "not to halloo until they were out of the wood." As regards the Board of Trade I would

suggest that they ought not to halloo until they are out of the Woods and Forests. In that leafy region the

Board of Health suffers all sorts of delays, and this should always be borne in mind. With the toast of the

Board of Health I will couple the name of a noble lord (Ashley), of whose earnestness in works of

benevolence, no man can doubt, and who has the courage on all occasions to face the cant which is the worst

[At the anniversary dinner of the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution, held under the presidency of Mr.,

I FEEL an unbounded and delightful interest in all the purposes and associations of gardening. Probably there

is no feeling in the human mind stronger than the love of gardening. The prisoner will make a garden in his

prison, and cultivate his solitary flower in the chink of a wall. The poor mechanic will string his scarlet bean

from one side of his window to the other, and watch it and tend it with unceasing interest. It is a holy duty in

foreign countries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, and here, too, the restingplaces of those

who have passed away from us will soon be gardens. From that old time when the Lord walked in the garden

"Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heaven above us bent The gardener Adam and his wife Smile

at all times and in all ages gardens have been amongst the objects of the greatest interest to mankind. There

may be a few, but I believe they are but a few, who take no interest in the products of gardening, except

perhaps in "London Pride," or a certain degenerate kind of "Stock," which is apt to grow hereabouts,

cultivated by a species of frozenout gardeners whom no thaw can ever penetrate: except these, the

gardeners' art has contributed to the delight of all men in their time. That there ought to be a Benevolent

Provident Institution for gardeners is in the fitness of things, and that such an institution ought to flourish and

I have risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who is a great gardener, and not only a great gardener

but a great man the growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated up with a power of intellect to a plant that is at

this time the talk of the civilized world I allude, of course, to my friend the chairman of the day. I took

occasion to say at a public assembly hardby, a month or two ago, in speaking of that wonderful building Mr.

Paxton has designed for the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen down, but that it

refused to do so. We were told that the glass ought to have been all broken, the gutters all choked up, and the

building flooded, and that the roof and sides ought to have been blown away; in short that everything ought to

have done what everything obstinately persisted in not doing. Earth, air, fire, and water all appear to have

conspired together in Mr. Paxton's favour all have conspired together to one result, which, when the present

generation is dust, will be an enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy, the talent, and the resources of

"But," said a gentleman to me the other day, "no doubt Mr. Paxton is a great man, but there is one objection

to him that you can never get over, that is, he is a gardener." Now that is our case tonight, that he is a

gardener, and we are extremely proud of it. This is a great age, with all its faults, when a man by the power of

his own genius and good sense can scale such a daring height as Mr. Paxton has reached, and composedly

place his form on the top. This is a great age, when a man impressed with a useful idea can carry out his

project without being imprisoned, or thumbscrewed, or persecuted in any form. I can well understand that

you, to whom the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the achievements of our friend are well known,

should be anxious to do him honour by placing him in the position he occupies tonight; and I assure you,

you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in permitting him to have the opportunity of

proposing his health, which that friend now does most cordially and with all the honours.

[On the occasion of the Second Exhibition of the Royal Academy in their new galleries in Piccadilly, the

President, Sir F. Grant, and the council gave their usual inaugurative banquet, and a very distinguished

company was present. The dinner took place in the large central room, and covers were laid for 200 guests.

The Prince of Wales acknowledged the toast of his health and that of the Princess, the Duke of Cambridge

responded to the toast of the army, Mr. Childers to the navy, Lord Elcho to the volunteers, Mr. Motley to

"The Prosperity of the United States," Mr. Gladstone to "Her Majesty's Ministers," the Archbishop of York

to, "The Guests," and Mr. Dickens to "Literature." The last toast having been proposed in a highly eulogistic

MR. PRESIDENT, your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to acknowledge the toast with

which you have done me the great honour of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of the

brotherhood of literature, present and absent, not forgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy

return to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits or lately did sit within a few chairs of or on your

left hand. I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the sisterhood of literature also,

although that "better half of human nature," to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful tribute, is

unworthily represented here, in the present state of its rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, man.

All the arts, and many of the sciences, bear witness that women, even in their present oppressed condition,

can attain to quite as great distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men. Their emancipation (as I

am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soon they may "push us from our stools"

at these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place of mine, may eloquently

depreciate mankind, addressing another better half of human nature sitting in the president's chair.

The literary visitors of the Royal Academy tonight desire me to congratulate their hosts on a very interesting

exhibition, in which risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise of a brilliant

succession in time to come is not wanting. They naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons

of great men historians, philosophers, poets, and novelists, vividly illustrated around them here. And they

hope that they may modestly claim to have rendered some little assistance towards the production of many of

the pictures in this magnificent gallery. For without the patient labours of some among them unhistoric

history might have long survived in this place, and but for the researches and wandering of others among

them, the most preposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and the absurdest superstitions, manners,

and customs, might have usurped the place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir Francis

Grant, what unlike portraits you yourself might have painted if you had been left, with your sitters, to idle

I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme (the recent death of Daniel Maclise) to

which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the president referred with the

eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my

constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who

have been its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side one by one that I already, begin to feel like

the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities around him were the

pictures which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream.

For many years I was one of the two most intimate friends and most constant companions of the late Mr.

Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility of

mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had

been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the

freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and largesthearted as to his

peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, without

one grain of selfambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, "in wit a man, simplicity a child,"

no artist, of whatsoever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory

more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the art goddess whom he

(1) In the book from which this eText is taken this speech and those that follow it were accidentally omitted