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A SERIES OF DAIL Y COMPANiVONS.
THE BEST OF ALL GOD COMPANY
BY BLANCHARD JERROLD.
~5:.
A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.
BOSTON:
SHEPARD & GILL.
I873.








PREFACE.
DICKENS has described himself as "a not very robust child,
sitting in by-places, near Rochester Castle,.ith a head full of
Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza." Now my
design and hope in putting forth my "Days" with "the Best
of all Good Company" is to fill the heads of the rising generation, and indeed some of the risen generation, with a desire to
become better acquainted with the best writers of this and other
countries.
My "DAYs" will, I hope, lead readers to form  life-long
acquaintances that shall have the best and happiest influence
on their lives. If they should draw readers from that
" -very unedifying stuffage of mind"
which is offered to them in the shape of light current literature,
to become the companions of the noble minds that, we are told,
"taken up any way are profitable company," I should be able to
say with Voltaire, "J'aifait unrpeu de bien-c'est mon meilleur
ouvrage."
REFORM CLUB, December, 1872.




PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
THE privilege of making extracts from Mr; Dickens's works
having been refused by his English publishers, Mr. Jerrold was
compelled to issue the English edition of his "Day with Charles
Dickens" in an incomplete and unsatisfactory form. As no such
restriction can be binding in this country, we have taken the liberty of completing Mr. Jerrold's design, by appending selections.
from "P Pickwick Papers," "Sketches by Boz," &c.; and, in order
to keep the book within prescribed limits, have left out some of
the less interesting matter that appeared in the English edition.
THE PUBLISHERS.
4




CHARLES DICKENS.
WAS passing in review masses of correspondence, betimes, on June 10, 1870, clearing the weeds from the
flowers, and tying up the precious papers of a life passed
in the thick of the literary activities of my time, when
I received a letter: "I should have written to you earlier
to-day but from the smart blow of this sudden illness of
our dear Charles Dickens, who had engaged to meet me this very afternoon (June 9) at 3 o'clock, little dreaming of what was to put aside the
appointment." I rang for the morning papers.
Charles Dickens had passed away from us! Lay before me his letter
in which he told me how, on a certain June day, travelling from Gad's
Hill to London, a bluff City man had piped over the edge of his morning
paper, "Do you see this? Douglas Jerrold is dead!" Dickens was inexpressibly shocked, for he had seen into the heart of his friend; and
they had parted only a few days before, with the intention of spending
some happy hours in the house by Rochester. "Few of his friends," -
I have the words before me in a blurred writing, not often written by that
firm and willing hand, -" I think, can have had more favorable opportunities of knowing him, in his gentlest and most affectionate aspect, than
I have had. He was one of the gentlest and most affectionate of men."
So of Dickens. Who knew him best and closest, saw how little he
would ever produce to the outer world, of the bright, chivalrous, engaging, and deep and tender heart that beat within his bosom. The well of
kindness was open to mankind, and from it generations will drink; but
it was never fathomed. Charles Dickens, as all writers about him have
testified, was so graciously as well as lavishly endowed by Nature that
every utterance was sunny, every sentiment pure, every emotional opinion
5




6            THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
instinctively right,  like a woman's. The head that governed the richlystored heart was wise, prompt, and alert at the same time. He commriunicated to all he did the delightful sense of ease with power. Prodigal
as he was, he seemed ever to reserve more love and tenderness than he
gave. His vigor was sustained, as well as brilliant and daring., I-is
mind, so marked in its self-respect and equal poise, was never weak on
great occasions, as the judicial mind so often is. There was something
feminine in the quality that led him to the right verdict, the appropriate
word, the core of the heart of the question in hand. The air about him
vibrated with his activity, and his surprising vitality. In a difficulty men
felt safe, merely because he was present. Most easily, among all thinkers
it has been my fortune to know, was he master of every situation in
which he placed himself. Not only because of the latent, conscious power
that was in him, and the knightly cheerfulness which became the pureminded servant of humanity who had used himself to victory; but because he adopted always the old plain advice, and deliberated well before
he acted with the vigor which was inseparable from any activity of his.
The art with which Charles Dickens managed men and women was
nearly all emotional. As in his books, he drew at will upon the tears of
his readers: in his life he helped men with a spontaneous grace and sweetness which are indescribable. The deep, rich, cheery voice; the brave
and noble countenance; the hand that had the fire of friendship in its
grip, - all played their part in comforting in a moment the creature who
had come to Charles Dickens for advice, for help, for sympathy. When
he took a cause in hand, or a friend under his wing, people who knew him
breathed in a placid sense of security. He had not only the cordial will
to be of use wherever his services could be advantageously enlisted, but
he could see at a glance the exact thing he might do; and beyond the
range of his conviction as to his own power, or the limit of proper asking
or advancing, no power on earth could move him the breadth of a hair.
Slow to adopt a cause, Charles Dickens was the first in the battle
for it when he had espoused it. He had the qualities of the perfect
trooper, as well as the far-seeing captain. I have a letter of his, about
Italy, dated 1844, in which, amid hearty gossip, he turns to a cause that
was dear to him at the time. " Come and see me in Italy," he says to my
father. "Let us smoke a pipe among the vines. I have taken a little
house surrounded by them, and no man in the world should be more welcome to it than you;" and from the midst of the vines he turns to the
Sanatorium in the New Road, nearly opposite the Devonshire Place in
which so many wisely-happy evenings have been passed. "Is your modesty really a confirmed habit, or could you prevail upon yourself, if you
are moderately well, to let me call you up for a word or two at the Sanatorium dinner? There are some men -excellent men -connected with
that institution who would take the very strongest interest in your doing
so, and do advise me one of these days, that if I can do it well and unaffectedly, I may." Dickens had steadfastness, endurance, thoroughness,




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                         7
in all he undertook. If he invited a friend to his house, and it was at a
distance, he would write the most minute directions, - a way-bill, - and
enliven every mile-stone with a point of humor or a happy suggestion of
pleasure to come out of the excursion.*  "Think it over."  (This from
Switzerland to a dear friend in London.) "'I could send you the minutest
particulars of the journey. It's nearly all railroad and steamboat, and
the easiest in the world." I have another letter of invitation to Paris,
written some three-and-twenty years ago. Amid exquisite touches of
humor, and in the glow of his friendship, lie details of the precisest kind,
beginning, -" The fifteenth of March is on a Monday. Now you can't
cross to Boulogne on a Sunday, unless in stunmer time..... The railroad from Abbeville hither, finished some time, is announced to open on
the 1st of March." There are directions, in the event of the railroad being
open, and in the event of its remaining closed, and an offer to secure the
proper seat in the malle poste at Boulogne. The coming, the visit, the return, the hour of arrival in London, are all mapped out, winding up with,
"in London on Saturday night the 27th.  VoilA tout - as we say."
In more serious matters, he was a man of order and of righteous doing
indeed. Cant is so well aired about the world, and people have come to
take a spice of it so much for granted in every public man who holds the'
cause of his brethren to heart, that they can hardly conceive of the noblest
servant that he had not the most infinitessimal particle of it. Writing
from the South, when he was about to travel to London with the MS. of
"The Christmas Carol," more than a quarter of a century ago, to read it
to a few friends in Mr. John Forster's chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
he observed of the book, "I have tried to strike a blow upon that part of
the brass countenance of wicked Cant, where such compliment is sorely
needed at this time; and I trust that the result of my training is at least
the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a staggerer. If you should
think at the end of the four rounds (there are no more) that the said
Cant, in the language of' Bell's Life,'.' comes up piping,' I shall be very
much the better for it." Dickens abhorred a sham with his whole soul.
When he published his " Child's History of England," the mass took it
for granted that the chapters which were appearing in the columns of
"Household Words" were so much copy, and that the writing of it for
his own children was only a common, and, to the world, warrantable artistic fiction. Such fiction was not possible to the greatest fiction-writer
of our century. I have his words before me on this history, and the ink
is yellowing fast:"I am writing a little history of England for my boy, which I will
send you when it is printed for him, though your boys are too old to
profit by it. It is curious that I have tried to impress upon him (writing,
I dare say, at the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper, t
* His letters, published in Mr. James T. Fields' delightful " Yesterdays with Authors,"
are evidence of his thoroughness and downright determination to make every detail of
any plan of his perfect.
t The Preacher Parrot.




)8          TTHE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
for I don't know what I should do if he were to get hold of any Conservative or High Church notions; and the best way of guarding against such
horrible result is, I take it, to wring the parrot's neck in his very cradle.
0 heaven! if you could have been with me at the hospital dinner last
Monday. There were men there, - your city aristocracy, - who made
such speeches, and expressed such sentiments, as any moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed through, his cindery bloom to have
thought of. Sleek, slobbering, bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle  and the auditory leaping up in their delight! I never saw such
an illustration of the power of purse, or felt so degraded and debased by
its contemplation, since I have had eyes and ears. The absurdity of the
thing was too horrible to laugh at. It was perfectly overwhelming. But
if I could have partaken it with anybody who would have felt it as you
would have done, it would have had quite another aspect, or would at
least, like a' classical' mask, have had one funny side to relieve its dismal
features.
" Supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of North
America, - yours, mine, and forty-eight others, picked for their concurrence of opinion on all important subjects, and for their resolution to
found a colony of common sense, - how soon would that devil, Cant, present itself among them in one shape or other? The day they landed, do
you say, or the day after?
"That is a great mistake, almost the only one I know, in the' Arabian
Nights,' where the Princess restores people to their original beauty by
sprinkling them with the Golden Water. It is quite clear that she must
have made monsters of them by such a christening as that."
There is a manuscript the world knows nothing about this day, and yet
which has been for many years in existence, and in circulation among
those who were native to the author's hearth. " The Life of our Saviour "
was written by Charles Dickens to guide the hearts of his children; and
if ever a labor of love was done by that most affectionate nature, this
was pre-eminently it. "I wish it were in my power," writes his dear
friend, Mr. James T. Fields, "to bring to the knowledge of all who doubt
the Christian character of Charles Dickens certain other memorable words
of his, written years ago, with reference to Christmas. They are not as
familiar as many beauitiful things from the same pen on the same subject,
for the paper which enshrines them has not as yet been collected among
his authorized works. Listen to these loving words, in which the Christian writer has embodied the life of his Saviour:' Hark! the waits are
playing, and they break my childish sleep. What images do I associate
with the Christmas music, as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree!
known before all others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather
round my little bed. An angel speaking to a group of shepherds in a
field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a
manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn
figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand;




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                     9
again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to
life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber
where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the
same in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a seashore,
teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other
children round; agaifi, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb,
hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to
the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers, a
thick darkness conming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one
voice heard, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do "'"  By the
eloquent pages that now will shortly be put within reach of every English
and American household, the children of Charles Dickens were taught
their first lessons of Christian love and Christian chivalry. With what
patience and thoroughness he wrought out his creed in his home can be
known only to the happy few who were privileged to live his life, and to
study the splendid and unbroken harmonies which dwelt in the life within,
as well as in the life without. How far the ripples of his home-spirit
rounded into the outer world, will, I hope, for the sake of the world, be
drawn by the hand to which the solemn duties of biographer shall be
presently confided. The circles broadened into far-off places from that
vehement central vibration of love,:and strangers stretched out their arms
to Dickens, and weary men unknown, sought his cheery and valiant temperament as balm and comfort.
WThen Ada, Lady Lovelace, was dying, and suffering the tortures of a
slow, internal disease, she expressed a craving to see Charles Dickens, and
talk with him. He went to her, and found a mourning house. The lady
was stretched upon a couch, heroically enduring her agony. The appearance of Dickens's earnest, sympathetic face was immediate relief. She
asked him whether the attendant had left a basin of ice, and a spoon.
She had. " Then give me some now and then, and don't notice me when
I crush it between my teeth: it soothes my pain, and -we can talk."
The womanly tenderness, the wholeness, with which Dickens would
enter into the delicacies of such a situation, will rise instantly to the mind
of all who knew him. That he was at the same moment the most careful
of nurses, and the most sympathetic and sustaining of comforters, who
can doubt?
"Do you ever pray? " the poor lady asked.
"Every morning and every evening," was Dickens's answer, in that
rich, sonorous voice which crowds happily can remember; but of which
they can best understand all'the eloquence, who knew how simple and devout he was when he spoke of sacred things, -of suffering, of wrong, or
of misfortune. " He taught the world," said his friend Dean Stanley, over
his new-made grave in Westminster Abbey, "great lessons of the eternal
value of generosity, of purity, of kindness, and of unselfishness; and by
his fruits shall he be known of all men." His engaging manner when ho
came suddenly in contact with a sick friend, defies description; but from




10             THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
his own narrative of his walk with my father, which he told me made his
heart heavy, and was a gloomy task, it is easy for friends to understand
the patience, solicitude, and kindly counsel, and designed humor with
which he went through with it. My father was very ill; but under
Dickens's thoughtful care, he had rallied before they reached the Temple.
" We strolled through the Temple," Dickens wrote me, " on our way to a
boat, and I have a lively recollection of him stamping about Elm Tree
Court, with his hat in one hand, and the other pushing his hair back,
laughing in his heartiest manner at a ridiculous remembrance we had in
common, which I had presented in some exaggerated light to divert him."
Then again, - of the same day, - " The dinner-party was a large one, and
I did not sit near him at table. But he and I arranged, before we went
in to dinner, that he was only to eat some simple dish that we agreed
upon, and was only to drink sherry-and-water."  Then, "We exchanged,'God bless you!' and shook hands."
And - they never met again.
But how full of wise consideration is all this day spent with the invalid
friend, in the midst of merriment, even to the ridiculous remembrance
"presented in some exaggerated light, to divert him." Mr. Charles Kent
has told me how he met Dickens a few weeks before his death, and was
observed, at a glance, by that most masterly and piercing observer, to be
in low spirits and feeble. *  Whereupon, Dickens, who had ample and
momentous business of his own on hand, put it aside, sketched a pleasant
day together: a tete-a-tete dinner and a walk. In short, to watch the
many sides of his unselfishness, and the fund of resources for the good
of other people he had at his command, was to be astonished at his extraordinary vitality. How good he was to all who had the slightest claim
on him, who shall tell? But that which Hepworth Dixon said over my
father's dust may be assuredly repeated by the narrow bed near Macaulay,
Sheridan, and Handel. If every one who has received a favor at the
hands of Dickens should cast a flower upon his grave, a mountain of
roses would lie upon the great man's breast. And, in truth, his grave
was filled with flowers.
To plaster a few of the ills which obtrude themselves unpleasantly
* Mr. Arthur Helps recently said that, during a walk with Charles Dickens, the great
novelist observed nine objects for every one that he, Mr. Helps, observed. The same
might be said by most men who have ever walked frequently in company with Mr. Dickens.
Besides this, I can vouch for another yet more important and striking fact, viz., that Mr.
Dickens scarcely ever looked direct at anything. He walked along without turning his
head or staring in front (as some of those horrid, colored, glaring photographs represent
him), as one should say- "Here I am looking right through you! " He saw everything
at a glance, or with "half an eye." It was only on very particular occasions that he
looked hard at anything. He had no need. His was one of those gifted visions upon
which objects photographed themselves on the retina in. rapid succession. The Poet
Laureate possesses a vision of a similar kind, though no doubt more intense, if not so
universal. He has no need to fix his eyes upon anything; and, indeed, has been found
sometimes to have seen the whole of an exquisite landscape when apparently looking
inwardly, as in a waking dream, and lost to all around him.




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      t
upon the attention, with checks handed to resounding cheers, is a kind
of charity that is strongly spiced with selfishness. The sham of charitydinner speakers and donors Dickens abhorred, as I have shown. And in
like manner, and with like vehemence, he detested slip-shod assistance, or
careless, unreflecting giving. The last time I sat with him on a business
occasion was at a council meeting of the Guild of Literature and Art.
There had been an application from the wife of a literary brother. The
wrecked man of letters was suffering from that which would never relax
its hold upon him. But it could not be said that his misconduct had not
brought on the blow. The firmness and delicacy with which Dickens
sketched the case to the council, passing wholly over the cause, to get at
once to the imploring fact upon which our hearts could not be closed, left
in my mind a delightful sense of his abounding goodness. He spoke of
the wife, and her heroic self-abandonment to her husband, through years
which would have tried beyond endurance very many wives. He begged
that the utmost might be done; and at the same time he remained firmly
just. What were the objects of the fund, as laid down in the rules?
Did the case come strictly within the limits of our mission? Friendship,
sympathy, apart, was it a proper and deserving case?  The points were
argued with the greatest care; and all the time an acute anxiety was upon
the countenance of the chairman. When at length we saw our way to
afford the help desired, Dickens's face brightened as he became busy with
his minutes and his books, and his secretary, who was at hand; and he
remarked cheerily how glad he was we had seen our way to do something.
Another occasion thrusts itself through a crowd of recollections. A
very dear friend of mine, and of many others to whom literature is a
staff, had died. To say that his family had claims on Charles Dickens is
to say that they were promptly acknowledged, and satisfied with the
grace and heartiness which double the gift, sweeten the bread, and warm
the wine. I asked a connection of our dead friend whether he had seen
the poor wife and children.
" Seen them! " he answered. " I was there to-day. They are removed
into a charming cottage. They have everything about themn; and, just
think of this, when I burst into one of the parlors, in my eager survey of
the new home, I saw a man in his shirt-sleeves, up some steps, hammering
away lustily. He turned. It was Charles Dickens; and he was- hanging
the pictures for the widow."
Dickens was the soul of truth and manliness, as well as kindness; so
that such a service as this came as naturally to him as help from his
purse. His friend, Paul Feval, has said over his grave, " Nothing in him
was false, not even his modesty."
There was that boy-element in Charles Dickens which has been so
often remarked in men of genius as to appear almost inseparable from
the highest gifts of nature.  "Why, we played a game of knock'em
down only a week or two ago," a friend remarked to me last June, with




12           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
brimming eyes. " And he showed all the old, astonishing energy and delight in taking aim at Aunt Sally."
My own earliest recollections of Charles Dickens are of his gayest
moods: when the boy in him was exuberant, and leap-frog or rounders
were not sports too young for the player who had written "Pickwick,"
twenty years before. To watch him through an afternoon, by turns light
and grave; gracious and loving and familiar to the young, apt and vigorous in council with the old; ready for a frolic upon the lawn - leap-frog,
rounders; as ready for a committee-meeting in the library; and then to
catch his cheery good-night, and feel the hand that spoke so truly from
the heart,- was to see Charles Dickens the man, the friend, the companion
and the counsellor, all at once, and to get at something like a just estimate
of that which was beautiful in the brilliant and noble Englishman we
have lost. The sweet and holy lessons which he presented to humanity
out of the humble places in the world could not have been evolved out of a
nature less true and sympathetic than his was. It wanted such a man as
Dickens was in his life to be such a writer as he was for the world. He
drew beauties out of material that to the common eye was vulgar, unpromising stuff. Shallow readers have said of him that he could not
draw a gentleman or a lady; and this charge has provoked some remarks
from "The Times," which are bold and to the point: -
"We have heard it objected also by gentlemen, that Charles Dickens
could never describe'a lady,' and by ladies that he could never sketch the
character of'a gentleman;' but we have always observed, that when put
to the proof, these male and female critics failed lamentably to establish
their case. We are not sure that Charles Dickens's gentlemen were all as
well dressed as those who resort to Poole's Temple of Fashion, or that
his ladies were always attired after the very last fancy of WYorth. Dress
is no doubt what may be called, in the catechism of gentility, the'outward and visible sign' of a gentleman, just as the outward fashion of a
lady is shown by her dress. But even these are nothing if that'inward
and spiritual grace' which is characteristic of the true gentleman and
real lady be wanting; and in that grace, however negligent they may be
in their attire, the ladies and gentlemen in Charles Dickens's works are
never deficient. We are not denying that the true type of gentle life is
to be found in the upper classes. Far from it. We only insist, when we
are told that Charles Dickens could not describe either a lady or a gentleman, that there are ladies and gentlemen in all ranks and classes of life,
and that the inward delicacy and gentle feeling which we acknowledge as
the only true criterion of the class, may be found under the smock-frock
of the ploughbo? as well as beneath the mantle of an earl."
The; "fierce light " which beats not only about a throne, but about all
stations in life in these days, has discovered the absolute truth of the
creed which animated Dickens, when, working upon his own observation,
he drew a gentleman in the rough form of Joe Gargery, and planted a
little chivalry in the breast of the convict who was grateful to Pip. Iu




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                             13
the long gallery of Dickens's portraits of the men and women of his
time, - to which I beseech the attention of the young reader, - there are
gentlemen and ladies of all degrees.  He made no fuss about "Nature's
noblemen; " but he painted what he saw, and delighted to find strong elements of that goodness which he loved so passionately, and worshipped
so devoutly, in all his rambles and prospectings in the unlikeliest places.
That he drew with an impartial hand, is witnessed not only by the hold
his creations at once got upon the public mind, but by the whole tenor of
his life and work, away from his desk.  The conventional gentleman and
lady had no picturesque side to attract him; and they could seldom be
got into the frame of his subject. He was an artist, and he consequently
preferred a green lane and a gypsy camp any and every day to the Ladies'
Mile and a lounge in his club.  If you want to make your most conventional gentleman look noble in marble to all posterity, you strip the figure Poole has dressed in his inspired moment, and shake out a toga, and
think about sandals. The poor and lowly come to the artist's hand readymade pictures. Besides, the observer's sense of justice is gratified when
he finds himself enabled, out of the fund of his own discoveries among
the neglected of his fellow-creatures, to rehabilitate the humble and despised.  While the tendency of modern party warfare has been grievously
to quicken and heat class animosities, the writings of Charles Dickens,
which have been spread over every level of society, have been powerful
counter-agents, teaching all classes the truth that is the best bond and the
safest, viz., that, in the words of "The Times," the gentlemen is to be found
"under the smock-frock of the ploughboy as well as beneath the mantle
of an earl."
Only Charles Dickens wrought this out many years ago, by patient
travels in the midst of the smock-frocks, and by obtaining proof positive
that there was occasionally a gentle heart under the corduroy of a costermonger. Dickens's trumph lay in this, that he convinced mankind of
the truth and completeness of his diagnosis.  None of the genteel classes
are on intimate terms of daily intercourse with hostlers; and yet who has
not accepted Sam Weller as a part of the breathing population of the
empire? Dickens's men and women ought to be included in the census.*
* "The British Medical Journal" declares: - "How true to Nature, even in the most
trivial details, almost every character and every incident in the works of the great
novelist whose dust has just been laid to rest really were, is best known to those whose
tastes or whose duties led them to frequent the paths of life from which Dickens delighted to draw. But none, except medical men, can judge of the rare fidelity with which
he followed the great Mother through the devious paths of disease and death. In reading' Oliver Twist' and' Dombey and Son,' or' The Chimes,' or even' No Thoroughfare,'
the physician often felt tempted to say,'What a gain it would have been to physic
if one so keen to observe and so facile to describe had devoted his powers to the medical
art!' It. must not be forgotten that his description of'hectic' (in' Oliver Twist') has found
its way into more than one standard work both in medicine and surgery." The "Law
Journal " bears testimony to his truth and force as a painter of lawyers:-" He has left
us a whole gallery of legal caricatures. We have the wonderful trial of' Bardell v. Pickwick,' introducing the fussy Buzfuz, and that rare phenomenon, a modest junior. In the




14             THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
By this admirable standpoint for his observation of humanity which
he had adopted, Dickens had come to regard all men and woman so
thoroughly and exclusively on account of their moral, intellectual, and
spiritual worth, that he was at home with all kinds oft society, in the highest and the humblest walks. So that it is easy to picture him standing
in a drawing-room at Windsor Castle, one arm just resting upon the sofa,
and talking in his quiet, earnest manner to the first lady in the land.
There would not be the least shadow  of nervousness in him: so great
was the command which his trained brain and heart had given him, in the
presence of humanity of every degree, under every conceivable circumstance, - by the throne,* or facing thousands of his countrymen, who
loved him, one and all, so well.
"The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed."
The "soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit," how often has Dickens
painted! -the Christian gentleman, if not Poole's; the modest, high-souled
gentlewoman, a lady, if not Worth's! He inclined to the Biblia Pauperum, and was delighted to catch heavy thumbs turning over the holy
pictures. But he turned no sour face upon the well-to-do. Of the foibles
and pretences of these, he was an unsparing critic; but he was as unsparing when he had the vices of the ignorant and poor to deal with. He
was pre-Raphaelite in his allegiance and constancy to Nature; but his
eye loved the beautiful, and his spirit leaned to all that was valiant, noble,
and holy in the human heart.  If he took his heroes amid the lower or
middle ranks of life, it was because here the picturesque in these won the
artist's eye; and if he drew the good that was in the scenes he analyzed,
rather than the bad, it was because he delighted in finding it under the
most unpromising circumstances, and in showing, to quote a line from
my father, "there is goodness, like wild honey, hived in strange nooks
and corners of the world."
But I am  not presuming to elaborate a literary estimate of Charles
Dickens. The time is not now, if indeed it can ever be, necessary; for
the popularity of his prodigious and glorious work has been, is, and will
same book we have the smart Dodson and Fogg, the excellent Mr.. Perker, and the solicitor to the Wellers. In' Bleak House' we have the great chancery suit of' Jarndyce v.
Jarndyce,' with graphic descriptions of the court, of the lawyers engaged in the suit, of
the shrewd solicitor of the Dedlock family, and of the poor law-writer. In the' Old Curiosity Shop,' we have Sampson Brass, the masculine Sally Brass, and the mirth-provoking
Dick Swiveller. In' Great Expectations' we have that wonderful character, Wemmick,
and his well-conceived employer, the Old Bailey attorney. We need not add to the list."
* Her Majesty gave Dickens, with a charming modesty "to so great an author," a
copy of her Highland book, inscribed in her beautiful handwriting," Charles Dickens,
Esq., from Victoria R." Dickens had hardly offered the Queen his favorite library edition
of his works, to which Her Majesty at once gave a place of honor, when he died.




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS8.                   15
be universal. People tell you that Mrs. Gamp will not do, in French, as
Madame Gamp, and that his fiction will not bear transplanting; but the
transplanting steadily goes on nevertheless, and every day shows us how
far the range of human sympathy stretches, when the name of Dickens
wakes it. Papers in any tongue that has a printing-press have echoed the
lamentations of our own over him whom Mr. Chorley has called "one of
the greatest and most beneficent men of genius England has produced
since the days of Shakspeare."
After writing the page on which Dickens as a painter of gentlefolk
was handled, I saw the tearful, eloquent record which Mr. Chorley, who
knew his subject so well, printed in " The Athenaeum." I was delighted to
find my view supported by so sound an authority and so intimate a -friend.
Mr. Chorley says: "It has been said that he could not draw gentlemen
and ladies (as footmen understand the designation). This is false. The
characters of Sir Leicester Dedlock in' Bleak House,' that of Mrs. Steerforth in' David Copperfield,' and fifty indications more, may be cited in
disproof. That he found greater pleasure in selecting and marking out
figures where the traits were less smoothed, or effaced by the varnish of
polite society, than in picturing those of a world where the expression of
individual characters becomes less marked, is true. To each man his own
field. An essay could be recalled, written to prove that Scott was a miserable creature, because his imagination delighted in the legends and
traditions of feudal times, with their lords and their retainers. And yet
Scott gave us the fisher-folk in'The Antiquary,' and Jeannie Deans.
But though, as'a man of the people,' Dickens loved to draw the people
in all their varieties and humor and incomplete ambitions; and though he
was by nature and experience a shrewd redresser of abuses, - tracing
them back to their primal causes, -he was in no respect the destroyer it
was for a while the whim of fools of quality and the faded people who
hang on their skirts, to consider him. One who redresses grievances is
not, therefore, an over-thrower of thrones. The life and work of Dickens
expressed a living protest against Disorder, - no matter what the Order."
And in another place Mr. Chorley bears witness to that love of, completeness, as well as of order, I have touched upon: " Those who were
permitted to know Charles Dickens in the intimacy of his own home cannot, without such emotion as almost incapacitates the heart and hand,
recall the charm of his bounteous and genial hospitality. Nothing can
be conceived more perfect in tact, more freely equal, whatever the rank of
his guests, than was his warm welcome. The frank grasp of his hand,
the bright smile on his manly face, the cheery greeting, are things not to
be forgotten while life and reason last, by those who were privileged to
share them. Thus, his exquisite knowledge and punctuality gave him
time, even when most busily at work for himself and others, to care for
and to consider the pleasure of all whom he harbored beneath his roof."
Signs of the end, and that he knew the end was at hand, were revealed
day by day, immediately after his death; and they are so many marks of




16           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
the love of order that was a ruling passion in Dickens throughout his life.
Death could not catch Charles Dickens unprepared, in any sense. That
he had misgivings, warnings, we cannot doubt; and these led him to prepare for the change. Only a few days before his death, he transferred
the property of "All the Year Round" to his eldest son, and formally
resigned its editorship. On the very day on which he died, he was to
have met his stanch and affectionate friend and fellow-worker, W. H.
Wills, to make a final settlement of accounts. He wrote to his " everaffectionately" Charles Kent: " To-morrow is a very bad day for me to
make a call, as, in addition to my usual office business, I have a mass of
accounts to settle;. but I hope to be with you at three o'clock. If I can't
be, why then I sha'n't be." - (The letter was written an hour or two before
he lay insensible, his light forever quenched, in the dining-room of Gad's
Hill Place.) — " You must really get rid of those opal enjoyments. They
are too overpowering.
"'These violent delights have violent ends.'
I think it was a father of your church who made this wise remark to a
young gentleman who got up early (or strayed out late) at Verona? "
The "opal enjoyments" refer to the early sky, and the whole is pleasant banter on the vehement devotion of his friend (the distinguished
poet) to his work as editor of "The Sun."
I had met Dickens about the middle of May, at Charing Cross, and had
remarked that he had aged very much in appearance. The thought-lines
of his face had deepened, and the hair had whitened. Indeed, as he approached me, I thought for a moment I was mistaken, and that it could
not be Dickens; for that was not the vigorous, rapid walk, with the stick
lightly held in the alert hand, whichhad always belonged to him. It was
he, however; but with a certain solemnity of expression in the face, and
a deeper earnestness in the dark eyes. However, when he saw me and
shook my hand, the delightful brightness and sunshine swept over the
gloom and sadness, and he spoke buoyantly, in the old, kind way, not in
the least about himself, but about my doings, about Dor6, about London
as a subject (which I and my friend had just resolved to write upon together),- about all that could interest me, and which occurred to him at
the moment. And he wrung my hand again as we parted; and the cast
of serious thought settled again upon the handsome face, when he turned,
wearily, I thought for him, towards the Abbey.
That within a month he would be resting there forever, buried under
flowers cast by loving hands, and that the whole civilized world would be
lamenting the loss of the great and good Englishman, I never for one
moment dreamed. But I thought sadly of him, I remember, afte; we
had parted. Nor was I alone in this. He was walking with a dear
friend of his a few weeks ago, when this one said, speaking of "Edwin
Drood," -




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                             1T
"Well, you, or we, are approaching the mystery" —
Dickens, who had been, and was at the moment, all vivacity, extinguished his gayety, and fell into a long and silent reverie, from which he
never broke during the remainder of the walk.  Was he pondering another and a deeper mystery than any his brain could unravel, facile as its
mastery was over the hearts and brains of his brethren?
We can never know.
It is certain, however, that the railway accident on the 9th of June,
1865, in which Dickens so nearly lost his life, made an ineradicable impression on him; and that, when he referred to it, he would get up and describe it with extraordinary energy.  He closed his last completed work
with a reference to it: "I remember with devout thankfulness that I can
never be much nearer parting company with my readers forever than I
was then, until there shall be written against my life the two words with
which I have this day closed this book, - THE END."
Too soon, for the country that loved him and was so proud of him,
were those two words written; and they were written on the 9th of June,
1870!
Even as these last words pass from under my hand, a sweet message
reaches me, from the affectionate and delicately-attuned heart of my
friend, Charles Kent.  Here are his flowers for the grave of the great man
whom he loved so manfully. If these will not send readers by the thousand to the " Great Dreamer's" pages, assuredly none of my utterance
will.
DICKENS AT GAD'S HILL.
OxNE summer's day - ah, saddest eighth of  No shadowy semblance theirs of human
June!                                 life.
My brooding heart, my very soul descries    Ideal shapes of visionary birth,
Around a chalet, in a grove at noon,   They breathe, they move, with vital force
Dream-children from the flowering earth   more rife
arise.                              Than fleeting, fleshly forms that people
earth.
So hushed (like death!) the calm, sequestered scene,                      The Angel-Child, the Guardian Guide of
One notes with eye, not ear, the fitful   Age,
breeze,                             With soul as pure as all the tears we
Thro' sunlit branches, flickering gold and  shed
green                             When swimming eyes first read on blotted
About yon Swiss roof nestling'mid the     page
trees.                              "Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was
dead."
Like faithful wanderers seen returning
home,                             The fading boy, the blossom nipped in bud,
Like magnets trembling truthful to the    Whose infant grace had oft the quaintest
north,                                 air,
To this one spot on all the world they roam:  Who questioned voices in the ocean flood,
Again they throng'round him who called    Whose looks of love were sad as tones of
them forth.                            prayer.
2




18             THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COIMPANY.
Till passed, like sigh in sleep, his parting   No spectral shades for glimpses of the
breath,                                 moon,
And o'er the couch where lay the gentle    But radiant shapes in calm of summer
Paul,                                   day,
Nought stirred above " the old, old fash-   They come unbidden to his haunts, at noon,
ioned Death " -                     Down the bright path they went-to
Nought save " the golden ripple on the     point the way.
wall!"
The sweet Child-Wife, the darling of a   These haunts, the aptest symbols of a life
heart                                That loved the pleasaunce winter ne'er
Whose tenderest chords that solemn eve     bereaves
were riven,                        Of verdure, in those grand old cedars rife,
When Dora's doom was told with speech-    Crowned with a lasting glory of Green
less art,-                              Leaves.
"That mute appeal, that finger raised to
heaven! "       -                  And yonder, basking in the golden air,
Luring his thoughts where'er his glance
The little cripple with the active crutch,
At thought of whom the mother's eyes       may roam,
Cinctured by blossoms in a garden fair,
The dear, familiar roof-beams of his
Sighing, as fell the black work from her     home.
touch,
It was " the color — ah, poor Tiny Tim! "
Between that home and this secluded
The stripling frail, who, dying with a kiss,  haunt
A child at heart, a man but to the sight!  Flows the broad highway, symbol here
Poor Rick! began the world again —not        again
this,                              That alien to his hearth no tread of want
Ah, no! " not this -the world that sets    Or toil was held, or ever passed in vain.
this right."
O Friend! O Brother! dearer to my heart
And orphan Johnny, his lost home afar,
Than even thy loving friendship could
An infant waif on awful billows hurled,    discern,
No mother clinging to it, floats, frail spar,    Thy thoughts, thy dreams, were of our
O'er "that dark sea that rolls round all   lives a part;
lives a part;
Thy genius love, not merely fame, could
Around the sunlit chalet where, within,      earn.
Dreams the great Dreamer'neath the
shadowing trees,                   Affection, admiration, honor, praise,
From flowering earth, fresh dews of love to    Innocent laughter, and ennobling tears,
will,                              Are thine by right, not through mere
Dream-children rise in lovely forms like   length of days,
these.                               Thro' loftier life, in never-ending years.
These words have welled from the heart of the poet, who will seldom
speak of his illustrious  friend, - his "brother," — without tears.  A
sweeter picture of Dickens than this could not be limned, to linger
through the years in the public mind.




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                       19
HIS LIFE.
E will now briefly run over the life and work of him\Y/      " \  "Whose' Carol' is an allegory fine,
The burden of whose' Chimes' is holy and benign."
Charles John Hougham Dickens was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on the 7th February, 1812. Of his
remote ancestors little is known, and that little is of meagre interest. His
father held an appointment in the Naval Pay Office, which necessitated
his residence at different seaports, and bred the intimate knowledge of
sailor life and character that he would seem to have transmitted to his
son. In 1815, Mr. John Dickens retired with a pension to London, where
he was engaged as parliamentary reporter on" The Morning Chronicle."
Charles was sent at the age of seven to a private school at Chatham, kept
by the Rev. William  Giles. Here he is said by a schoolfellow to have
manifested not a little of the energy, vivacity, and fondness for all healthy
sports and exercises that characterized his whole life. Of the young days
of Charles Dickens, as described in Mr. Forster's biography, it need only
be said, in this place, that his earliest lot was cast in unpleasant places;
that, while his father was in difficulties, his first employment was pasting
labels upon bottles at a blacking manufactory in the Strand; that he
fought his way out of the grip of iron fortune with that gallant spirit of
his, before the down had left his boyish cheek; and that he remembered
the dismal outset of his life ever afterwards with acute pain. He " learned
in sorrow " the lessons of good-will to the poor, and of mercy towards the
unfortunate and the erring, which he taught in his romances; and all he
has written of sad chil4hood welled from a heart that suffered every
pang. Later he entered, at his father's wish, a solicitor's office -no very
congenial abiding-place for a young man nourishing the vague dreams
and desires he afterwards set forth in "David Copperfield," which has
more of Dickens in it than all the rest of his works put together. The
profession upon which he had entered soon bred weariness and disgust.
Wisely deferring to the bright boy's inclination, his father withdrew him




20           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
from the attorney's office, and placed him with Messrs. Gurney, the parliamentary shorthand writers. Dickens has told, in "David Copperfield,"
the story of his stenographic difficulties, and ultimate success in surmounting them. He stated publicly, at a meeting of the Newspaper Press Fund,
in 1865, that he was working in the reporters' gallery of the House of
Commons before the age of eighteen. He added many curious particulars
of his old pursuit, -tales of rapid travelling (fifteen miles an hour in a
post-chaise), to meet certain speakers at certain points, and "take" the
gist of their orations; stories of adventures on the road, of the old House
of Lords, of the ancient cunning of head and hand that had not forsaken him, of the old pleasure in the work felt by him yet. His first engagement as shorthand reporter was on " The True Sun." He was afterwards successively connected with "The Mirror of Parliament" (conducted by his uncle, Mr. Barrow) and " The Morning Chronicle," where
he succeeded William Hazlitt, who had himself replaced the future Lord
Chancellor Campbell. It is from his manifold experiences as a reporter
that Dickens drew the vivid sketches of the old stage-coach travelling
and travellers with which nearly all his works are so plentifully besprinkled.
The account of his earliest writings has been variously given. Mr.
James Grant has related the most reliable particulars of the matter. According to him, Dickens made his debut in literature towards the end of
1834, or in the beginning of 1835, in the pages of the old "Monthly
Magazine," then conducted by Capt. Holland.  His first contributions
were sent anonymously. Their tone was chiefly humorous. They were
signed " Boz."  " The Monthly Magazine" subsequently (in 1836) came
under the direction of Mr. James Grant, who, struck by "The Sketches
by Boz," desired to make arrangements for their continuance. Capt. Holland the retiring editor, had forgotton the young author's name, —the
name of Charles Dickens I A letter, bearing the now well-known autograph, was at last shown to Mr. Grant. - In it the author of the Sketches
requested a modest remuneration for whatever copy he might contribute
in future, his first articles having been gratuitous. The request was complied with, and Mr. Dickens continued to contribute to "The Monthly
Magazine." Dr. Black and Vincent Dowling, a reporter, are among the
many persons that are said to have first perceived the genius of Charles
Dickens. Indeed, it would seem, that, as early as 1835, great things were
thought and predicted of Dickens among his colleagues. "The Sketches
by Boz " were not much noticed at first, but gradually they attracted the
attention of the inner circles of literature. They opened a new and
golden vein of humor: they taught solemn lessohns too, and this in an impressive manner. The most serious and stirring pieces in the collection
are, "A Visit to Newgate" and the "Drunkard's Death:" the best in
the comic category are, " The Election for Beadle," "Miss Evans at the
Eagle," and ",Greenwich Fair." The Sketches were published in a collected form early in 1836. In the same year appeared the first number of
"The Pickwick Papers."




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                       21
The story of their origin is well known. They were written in the
beginning to certain plates designed by Seymour, though Dickens seems
to have stipulated for untrammelled action. But about a mouth after
the publication of the first part, the artist died, and the author was
thenceforth sole inspirer of the work. In the preface to the cheap edition
of " Pickwick," published in 1847, Dickens gives an unmistakable and a
clear account of the transaction between author, artist, and publisher.
The first five numbers of "Pickwick" fell flatly and tamely.  On the
average, but fifty copies of each number were sold. However, just as the
publishers were considering the advisability of ceasing the enterprise,
Sam Weller appeared on the scene. The character elicited nearly universal admiration. "The Pickwick Papers" suddenly rose to a pitch of
popularity that has scarcely ever been equalled by a literary work.
As the publication continued, its popularity increased. When it
reached the last number, 40,000 parts monthly had been sold, and the
publishers had realized nearly ~20,000. The publication of " Pickwick "
is, and must remain, a thing of British literary history. The work was
quoted, abused, imitated, pirated, and dramatized wherever the English
tongue is spoken. After "Pickwick," Dickens was master of the field. He
could command publishers, for he could command the public. In the same
year, 1836, he produced " The Strange Gentleman," a burletta, which was
played at the St. James's Theatre; and in December, " The Village Coquettes," an operetta, set to music by his friend John Hullah, and performed at the same theatre. Both pieces were entirely successful, and
were republished by Bentley, with a dedication to G. Pitt Harley.
In 1837, Charles Dickens married Mliss Catherine Hogarth, a daughter of Mr. George Hogarth, musical and dramatic critic of "The Morning
Chronicle."  Shortly afterwards he undertook the editorship of "Bentley's
Miscellany."  " Oliver Twist" appeared in this magazine, and was subsequently republished in a complete form by Mr. Bentley, with illustrations
from the pencil of George Cruikshank. The outcry raised by the book
will be remembered by elderly readers. It was aspersed by partisans of
the Poor Laws and Workhouse System  as grossly exaggerated and distorted. Nevertheless, year by year new proofs have arisen to back the
allegations contained in the story of the pauper boy. Dickens's knowledge of his theme could scarcely then be honestly doubted: it is now
universally admitted. In 1848, Mr. John Forster dedicated his fine " Life
of Goldsmith" to his illustrious friend, on the ground of Dickens's
knowledge of and sympathy with the multitude of his fellow-countrymen.
" Come with me and behold,
O friend, with heart as gentle for distress,
As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind
The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind,
That there is fiercer crowded misery
In garret toil and London loneliness?
Than in cruel islands mid the far-off sea."




22           THE BEST 0F ALL GOOD COMPANY.
After the completion of " Oliver Twist," Dickens gave up the editorship of "Bentley's Miscellany" to his friend, Harrison Ainsworth. In
January, 1838, "The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, the Clown," were produced under the editorship of Charles Dickens. A month afterwards appeared the first number of " Nicholas Nickleby," and the story extended
through twenty parts. It was published in its entirety by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, prefaced by a dedication to Mr. Macready, for whom the
author had a profound admiration and a loving regard. In his preface to
this novel, Dickens tells in what manner he obtained an insight into the
Yorkshire schools. The pictures of Squeers and Dotheboys Hall
called forth an excitement scarcely less violent than that caused by
"Oliver Twist." The emancipation of childhood seemed to be as daring
and indelicate a theme as the emancipation of the poor. Strangely
enough, numberless claimants appeared to take upon themselves the contumelious adjectives piled on Mr. Squeers. Dickens was threatened with
legal penalties, and even personal chastisement. The Brothers Cheeryble
were said to be drawn from Messrs. Grant, the mill-owners of Manchester.
The novel was, of course, dramatized, -once at the Adelphi, as a farce,
and again at the Strand Theatre. Sydney Smith, who had, as he said,
"resisted Dickens as long as he could," succumbed to "Nickleby."
Thomas Moore had already avowed his admiration of the young novelist.
Thackeray (who had offered to illustrate "Pickwick") consistently applauded Dickens's writings. Some time after the "lucky escape of' Pickwick,'" as he said, from his hands, Thackeray produced, in "Fraser's
Magazine," an ample testimony of his generous admiration of the author;
and lecturing, in 1857, at St. Martin's Hall, he took occasion to mention
the fondness children always have for Dickens's works, and notably his
own daughter's infatuation for "Nicholas Nickleby."
The first number of "Master Humphrey's Clock" appeared in the
spring of 1840. There was a considerable deviation in the mode of publishing this work from the familiar "green leaf " form. The new plan did
not, however, hit the public taste. It was found necessary to resuscitate
the two WYellers, that the novel should not, fail. By the help of these
two revivals the work succeeded; and the two principal tales, " The Old
Curiosity Shop" and " Barnaby Rudge," became as popular as the rest of
Dickens's writings. The work was published in a complete form; but the
author chose to have the component stories separated afterwards. "Master Humphrey's Clock" thus became obsolete in its primitive guise. Of
"The Old Curiosity Shop," it is scarcely necessary to speak. The pathetic beauty of Little Nell's story has touched millions of hearts already;
and will, let us hope, stir the bosoms of our children and their descendants while the language shall last. At the time of its publication in serial parts, Dickens received countless letters from readers, imploring him
to deal gently with Little Nell. Thomas Moore wrote a graceful essay on
the character in a literary journal. "Barnaby Rudge " is a faithful picture of the Lord Gordon Riots of 1780. Mr. W. P. Frith executed a




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                     23
painting of Dolly ~arden, which elicited the most unqualified praise
from Charles Dickens, and led to the artist being commissioned to reproduce on canvas several of the imaginary characters to which "Boz " had
given life. Apropos of the raven in " Barnaby Rudge," Dickens wrote the
history of the two birds which had been in his possession, and whose
traits and habits he has portrayed in the "Happy Family," published in
"Household Words."  Dramatized versions of "Barnaby Rudge" were
produced at the Lyceum and other theatres. About this time Dickens
was much in society. His acquaintance with Lady Blessington and
Count D'Orsay is well known. At this date, " The Picnic Papers," edited
by Charles Dickens, were produced. He contributed " The Lamplighter's
Story" to the publication; the rest of the papers being written by eminent authors,- for instance, Talfourd, Thomas Moore, Allan Cunningham, Harrison Ainsworth, &c.
On the 3d of January, 1842, Dickens left England for the United
States, in his voyage fulfilling a promise he had made to Washington Irving and other American correspondents. In the October of the same
year, the famous "American Notes " were issued, with a frontispiece by
Clarkson Stanfield, and a dedication to the American people. The book
caused a storm of indignation on the other side of the Atlantic. Dickens
was vituperated, slandered, and misinterpreted in nearly every American
print. Judge Haliburton (Sam Slick) was vehement in his animadversions on Dickens's alleged ingratitude. But a few more sober and generous writers (among whom was Emerson) were frank enough to recognize
the many truths, - the startling value, indeed, of these same " American
Notes." While in America, Dickens was the centre of the intellectual
writers of New York. Halleck, Bryant, Washington Irving, Prof. Felton,
Davis, James T. Fields (for whom he ever after cherished a most loving
regard, as his delightful letters testify), were among his associates. Dinner
after dinner was given in honor of " Boz." He was everywhere received
with such cordial enthusiasm as proved that his native land and that of
his hosts were one in heart and brain at least. During Dickens's visit to
the " States," he was active in essaying to procure a final settlement of
the International Copyright question. How strongly Dickens felt on the
subject of literary piracy is fully shown in his letter to " The Athenseum"
of July, 1842.
On Dickens's return from America, he produced a prologue to " The
Patrician's Daughter" of Dr. Westland Marston, which was recited at
Drury Lane by Mr. Macready. In the beginning of 1843, appeared the
first number of "Martin Chuzzlewit."  The American caricatures therein
contained redoubled the anger felt against Dickens in the United States.
Through each of Dickens's works runs a thread of golden purpose.
"Chuzzlewit," not forgetting " The Christmas Carol," may be considered
as a crusade against "Cant" in its most vicious form, and the prevalent
system of hospital nursing. " Chuzzlewit" is, on the whole, one of the
masterpieces Dickens has left to posterity. About this time he was very




24           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
intimate with Douglas Jerrold, Sydney Smith, Thackeray, &c., in fact,
began to take his stand as one of the chiefs and leaders of: the national
literary brotherhood. At Christmas, 1843, appeared "The Christmas
Carol," with illustrations by John Leech.  The simple, warm-hearted
story took the world by storm, even as "Pickwick " had done. All the
papers concurred in estimating it as a chef d'ceuvre of its kind. Thackeray, Lord Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Thomas Hood, — the leading intelligences of the age, —were touched by Tiny Tim. In the summer of
1845, Dickens went to Italy. His letters to Jerrold, his invitations to
"come and smoke a pipe among the vines," his graphic descriptions of
his house, with its "rooms as big as a church," coupled with his affectionate remembrance of friends in England, say perhaps as much of the
author's kindly nature and keen powers of enjoyment as the world will
*ever read or hear. At the end of the year, " The Chimes" was published
in the same form as the author's previous Christmas book. The work
was written on the continent. It met with a cordial reception. People
began to look for a book by Dickens at Christmas as regularly as the
Christmas pudding. On his return from the continent, Dickens made his
appearance in an amateur performance at St. James's Theatre. The
piece selected was Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humor," and it was
performed by such a company of literary and artistic celebrities as has
been rarely assembled. Dickens played Capt. Bobadil: the other parts
were sustained by Henry Mayhew, Dudley Costello, Mark Lemon, George
Cattermole, John Forster, Douglas Jerrold, Blanchard Jerrold, John
Leech, Frank Stone, &c., &c. Dickens had always manifested an intense
love for the stage. His acting was perfect. His dramatic taste was such
that Douglas Jerrold appealed to him for his opinion of " Time works
Wonders." In the beginning of 1846, Dickens became connected with a
new daily paper; and the first number of " The Daily News," appeared
under his editorship. He wrote for the new journal " Travelling Letters
written on the Road," and "Pictures from Italy."  But his genius was
cramped in the columns of a daily paper, and he shortly resigned'the
editorship to his friend Mr. Forster.
Towards the close of 1846, appeared the first number of " Dombey
and Son." The death of Little Paul is undoubtedly one of the most
touching passages in the English language. The author, strolling
about Paris on the night when "he and his little friend parted company
forever," avowed that his heart was heavy with the sorrow he had
created. "The Battle of Life" was the title of the Christmas book of
this year (1846). The Christmas of 1847 passed without the appearance
of a seasonable story. In the following year, however, appeared "The
Haunted Man," which though powerful, and, in places, irresistibly humorous, scarcely met with the usual reception given to Dickens's stories.
In 1849, "David Copperfield" appeared.  This book has always been
held to be, in a great measure, autobiographical. It is, on the whole, the
most artistic, the completest of Dickens's novels.  The scene of the




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                     25
wreck off Yarmouth is, in particular, marvellous in dramatic power and
lifelike description. The boyhood of Copperfield is absolutely faultless.
Early in 1850, "Household Words " was started. Dickens bestowed
the greatest care on the editorship of his new journal. He assembled
round him, at divers times, a staff composed of the most promising young
writers of his age. He himself contributed a vast number of tales, serial
essays, and detached articles. His " Child's History of England," "The
Happy Family," and the several Christmas stories, are his most noticeable
contributions. "Bleak House" appeared in 1851. The book-was mainly
a vigorous satire on the practices of the Court of Chancery. It possesses
the merit of being in no degree overstrained. The suit of " Jarndyce v.
Jarndyce" is known to have had its prototype in real life. Walter Savage Landor was supposed to be the original of Boythorne.
Dickens now commenced the public readings of his own works. Birmingham, Peterborough, and Chatham claim each to be the town where his
maiden essay was made. There is no need to dwell on the immense success that attended these public appearances. As a reader, Dickens has
never been equalled. His command over the laughter or tears of an audience was absolute. In his presence the attention could never slacken
for an instant. And so at home, and in America, on his second visit,'he
drew multitudes whenever he announced himself.
In August, 1854, "Hard Times" was republished from "Household
Words." The book is the poorest of all the great author's works. From
this time the chief incidents in Dickens's life will be vivid in the public
recollection.  The publication of "Little Dorrit" re-assured those of
Dickens's admirers who had augured a weakening of his powers from the
manifest inferiority of "Hard. Times;" and assuredly the sketch of the
Circumlocution Office is fully as masterly as any satire Dickens ever
penned. That the views and arguments of the Barnacle family are in
nowise overstrained, will be vouched for by the whole of that presumptuous section of the British public which is eternally "wanting to
know."
In the spring of 1856, Dickens purchased Gad's Hill Place, -a house
which had been pointed out to him, while a boy, as the type of what he
might attain by "working and minding his book."  Dickens began, in
1858, to give his readings professionally. His first appearance took place
at St. Martin's Hall, on the 29th of April. Two or three months later, a
painful matter concerning the author's private life was brought before the
public by the publication of a protest against divers "rumors and slanders," to which his separation from his wife had given rise. -The course
thus taken by Dickens occasioned some astonishment; but the whole
question is, happily, now at rest. In this year he was active in pleas and
performances on behalf of the Royal Dramatic College. At the public
meeting held for the purpose of establishing the institution, he delivered
one of his most eloquent addresses. In 1859, owing to a disagreement
with MIcssrs. Bradbury and Evans, Dickens thought fit to bring the pub



26           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
lication of "Household Words" to an abrupt close. In its stead, he projected and established "All the Year Round," in the first number of
which appeared the first instalment of "A Tale of Two Cities."  Dickens subsequently published, in the same journal, the well-known sensational story, "Hunted Down," and a series of whimsical papers, entitled
collectively "The Uncommercial Traveller."- At the close of 1860,
" Great Expectations " appeared in three volumes, illustrated by Marcus
Stone. The plot of this story and some of its characters are wildly improbable; but many parts, notably the description of Pip's childhood,
and the pursuit and seizure of the two convicts, are in Dickens's brightest
manner. With the exception of papers and Christmas stories in "All
the Year Round," and one or two other periodicals, during the following
three years, Dickens confined his labors to readings, and to presiding at
innumerable public dinners and meetings. On the 1st of May, 1864,
however, appeared No. 1 of " Our Mutual Friend," — a novel that has
been very diversely judged, and which is, on the whole, not popular with
the mass of readers. This circumstance is not easily accounted for, since
" Our Mutual Friend," though somewhat forced here and there, ranks
next to " David Copperfield" for perfection of workmanship and delineation of character. It is probable that the plot mitigated the success of
the book: it is avowedly fantastic and improbable.
In the spring of 1865, Dickens delivered one of his most famous
speeches. It was on the occasion of the Newspaper Press Fund. He recited his experience as a reporter, concluding with an eloquent plea for
the profession in general. Amidst a storm of applause, he concluded with
the now well-known words, "I am not here advocating the case of a
mere ordinary client, of whom I have little or no knowledge: I hold a
brief to-night for my brothers." On the 9th of June, in this year, Dickens received that physical and mental shock that no doubt indirectly
hastened his death. He was a passenger in a tidal train that met with an
accident at Staplehurst, that horrified the whole country by the wholesale
sacrifice of life it represented. He escaped unhurt, only to be the first to
help those who had been less fortunate; but his frame and nervous system
were much shaken.
In 1868, he paid his second visit to America. The farewell banquet
given to him at the Freemasons' Tavern, under the presidency of his
friend Lord Lytton, the toasts and speeches and cheers of nearly five hundred gentlemen distinguished in every branch of learning, and all the
liberal professions, must be fresh in all memories. In April of the following year, Dickens returned to England, having experienced in the
United States such a welcome as has never been given to pontiff, prince,
or statesman in the great Republic. In 1868, the Farewell Readings
commenced. The reader was in feeble health, and was advised that he
must discontinue his entertainments. He obeyed, and so far recovered as
to be able to resume them a few months afterwards, and thus terminate
the series. It was at the Academy dinner that he made his last speech,



A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      27
eloquent words of grief for the loss of his beloved friend Maclise. On
the 9th of April, 1870, Dickens had a long interview with the Queen at
Buckingham Palace. It was made known, after his death, that he had
been offered more than one title of honor, and had declined a distinction
that could add no glory to that which, by his own brilliant and courageous genius, he had conquered, without the favor of any party.
We have now arrived at the last' scene of the great author's life.
"The Mystery of Edwin Drood," it is said, did not flow from his brain
with the smoothness and facility of his other works. On Tuesday, 31st
of May, he complained that his writing wearied him. On Wednesday, as
it is known, he fell prostrate. On the next day, at ten minutes past six,
he died. On the 14th of June, 1870, he was laid in the Poets' Corner of
Westminster Abbey; and his grave was literally filled with flowers.
He was laid in the Abbey, in the presence of his children and Dean
Stanley, who so warmly admired his genius. How lovingly and reverently
thousands stepped to the open grave, and filled it with flowers I How
constantly throngs came to look at the new slab in Poets' Corner which
covered the ashes of the noble Englishman! The pilgrims will never
tire and will never cease. Every writer brought his tribute of praise, and
not the least graceful was that of Mr. J. C. Parkinson, who had known
the illustrious dead, and worked under his genial and generous editorship.
This of the funeral in the Abbey: -
"Charles Dickens lies, without one of his injunctions respecting his
funeral having been violated, surrounded by poets and men of genius.
Shakspeare's marble effigy looked yesterday into his open grave; at his
feet are Dr. Johnson and David Garrick; his head is by Addison and
Handel; while Oliver Goldsmith, Rowe, Southey, Campbell, Thomson,
Sheridan, Macaulay, and Thackeray, or their memorials, encircle him;
and Poets' Corner, the most familiar spot in the whole Abbey, has thus
received an illustrious addition to its peculiar glory.  Separated from
Dickens's grave by the statues of Shakspeare, Southey, and Thompson,
and close by the door to Poets' Corner, are the memorials of Ben Jonson, Dr. Samuel Butler, Milton, Spenser, and Gray; while Chaucer, Dryden, Cowley, Mason, Shadwell, and Prior are hard by, and tell the bystander, with their wealth of great names, how -
"'These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.'
"The twenty months which Geoffrey Chaucer spent as clerk of the
works in the reign of Richard the Second were the indirect cause of the
special sanctity with which Englishmen have for nearly five centuries invested the spot where Dickens rests. His death in the house, made over
to him in virtue of his official position by the keeper of the Lady Chapel
of the Abbey, led to his being buried at the entrance of St. Benedict's




28           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
Chapel; and from the times of Spenser, the next great poet, who followed
him a century later, to yesterday, Poets' Corner has been what its name
implies, the chosen receptacle for those whom England has regarded as
her greatest and best. Beaumon't followed Spenser, and was laid in a
nameless grave.  Then came what Dean Stanley terms'the cry and
counter-cry' over the ashes of Shakspeare, of whom Ben Jonson wrote, -
"'My Shakspeare, rise, I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little farther off to make thee room.
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.'
The remains of Shakspeare were, it is needless to repeat, never removed,
the anathema of the poet against those who should' dig his bones or dig
his dust' precluding the attempt, and the statue of him, which stands by
Dickens's grave, was not erected until a century after his death. Ben
Jonson's request to Charles I. to grant him a favor; the' What is it?' of
the monarch; the reply of'Eighteen inches of square ground;' the regal
retort,' Where?'; and the reply,' In Westminster Abbey,' - are all associated with his tomb, as well as the' Orare Ben Jonson,' and the medallion on which the sculptor has by mistake put the buttons on the wrong
side of the coat. The thousands who visited the Abbey yesterday, and
the thousands more who will revive their memory of it by visiting Dickens's grave, will find an ample store of traditions such as these in the
records of this southern transept, or Poets' Corner.
" To meet the chance of the friendly and sympathetic negotiations for
the interment in Westminster Abbey falling through, due inquiry was
made at Rochester Cathedral, and it was arranged provisionally that the
funeral should take place there. The ecclesiastical authorities of Rochester made no difficulty as to closing the cathedral during the ceremony,
and a site was viewed on which there would have been ample room for
the erection of a fitting memorial. There would, moreover, have been a
certain appropriateness of selection had Rochester been decided on. Literary pilgrims would have made their way thither from all parts of the
earth, just as they do now to Stratford-on-Avon; and men would have
told each other how the great English humorist-and teacher had returned
to the scenes of his youth in the days of his vigorous maturity. Though
not born at Rochester, Mr. Dickens spent some portion of his boyhood
there, and was wont to tell how his father, the late Mr. John Dickens, in
the course of a country ramble, pointed out to him, as a child, the house
at Gad's Hill Place, saying,'There, my boy, if you work and mind your
book, you will perhaps one day live in a house like that.' This speech
sunk deep, and in after years, and in the course of his many long pedestrian rambles through the lanes and roads of the pleasant Kentish country, Mr. Dickens came to regard this Gad's Hill House lovingly, and to
wish himself its possessor.




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                     29
"This seemed an impossibility. The property was so held -that there
was no likelihood of its ever coming into the market, and so Gad's Hill
came to be alluded to jocularly, as representing a fancy which was pleasant enough in dream-land, but: would never be realized. Meanwhile the
years rolled on, and Gad's Hill became almost forgotten. Then a further
lapse of time, and Mr. Dickens felt a strong wish to settle in the country,
and determined to -let Tavistock House. About this time, and. by the
strangest.:coincidences, his intimate friend and close ally, Mr. W. H.
Wills, chanced to sit next to a lady, att a London dinner-party, who remarked, in the course of conversation, that a house and. grounds had
come into her possession, of which- she wanted to dispose.  The reader
will guess the rest. The house was in Kent, was not far from Rochester,
had this and that distinguishing feature which made it like Gad's Hill,
and, like no other place; and the upshot of Mr. Wills's dinner-table chitchat with a lady with whom he had never met before, was that Charles
Dickens realized the dream of his youth, and. became the possessor of
Gad's Hill."
Mr. Julian Young met Charles Dickens -on the 29th of May, 1846.
And he made this charming record in his diary:" I am delighted to have eaten, drunk, and. chatted with' Boz.' I have
so often found the Brobdignagians of my fancy dwindle into Lilliputians
when I have been admitted to familiar intercourse with them, that, considering my unqualified admiration of' Boz's' writings, and the. magnitude of my expectations, it is something to say that I am not in the least
disappointed with him. I longed to tell him of the life-long- obligations'he has laid me under; for there was a period in. my life when. sickness.and sorrow, and their attendant handmaid anxiety, were constant inmates
in my home; and in those sad days we used to look out for the post-bag
which was to bring us the last number of "Nickleby," or "' Chuzzlewit,"
or " Dombey," with all the eagerness with which an invalid listens for the
doctor's footsteps on the stair. No drug, no -stimulant, ever wrought the
wondrous effects that the sight of the  green covers of each number did
on -our poor patient. At their advent, grief and pain would flee away,
and in their stead pleasant tears and'laughter, holding both his sides,'
would take their place.  How we used to.dread coming to the close of a
number! What devices we had recourse to for: spinning it out I How,
like greedy children smacking their lips with the keen sense of.enjoyment
over some dainty, would we linger over every racy morsel of humor, roll
it over our tongues, and repeat it' to each other for the sake of protracting our intellectual feast as long as possible I
"I hate to hear invidious comparisons, made between the. merits of
Dickens and of Thackeray. Each has his excellences, and neither trenches
on the domain of the other. ~For, though they are both students of human nature, they approach her from different: sides. Thackeray~writes




380          THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
pure and idiomatic English, and he has a deep insight into the foibles of
his kind. But though personally he has made many stanch friends, and
all who know him love him well, yet he certainly does not take as genial
or as generous a view of men and women as Dickens. He sees men and
manners with the jaundiced eye of a pessimist; whereas his great competitor sees'good in everything,' and has a heart boiling over with goodwill to all mankind. None so poor but he can do him reverence; none so
depraved in whom he cannot detect some redeeming quality. Thackeray
has an intimate knowledge of the hollowness, artificiality, and waywardness of fashionable life; and from out the depths of his own experience
constructs imaginary lay-figures, which he considers as typical representations of a class. But Dickens's portraits, however antic they may seem,
are yet drawn from real flesh and blood. Thackeray's picture-gallery is
composed of recollections of men and women he has met with in promiscuous society. Dickens's portraits are studies from the life of those whom
he has not met with in Rotten Row, or rubbed against in the drawingroom, but whom he has fallen in with in the by-ways of the world, and
who have attracted his observation by their individuality. The characters in Dickens's writings which have been most, severely criticized as
exaggerated or distorted are actual transcripts of bona-fide originals.
Why, who that knew her could fail to recognize the original of Mrs. Leo
Hunter? In younger days I was at one or two of her parties in Portland
Place. Who, that is familiar with Manchester, does not know the Cheeryble brothers? Who, that is old enough to remember a certain inn in
Holborn in coaching days, can forget the original of Sam Weller? The
original of Mrs. Gamp is not so generally known, but I know well the
ladies who first introduced her to Dickens's notice.
"While I write, I am reminded of an anecdote which shows in a very
strong light the extraordinary sway he exercises over the hearts even of
those'unused to the melting mood.' Mrs. Henry Siddons, a neighbor
and intimate friend of the late Lord Jeffery, who had free license to enter
his house at all hours unannounced, and c6me and go as she listed, opened
his library-door one day very gently to look if he was there, and saw
enough at a glance to convince her that her visit was ill-timed. The
hard critic of' The Edinburgh' was sitting in his chair, with his head
on the table in deep grief. As Mrs. Siddons was delicately retiring, in
the hopes that her entrance had been unnoticed, Jeffery raised his head,
and kindly beckoned her back. Perceiving that his cheek was flushed
and his eyes suffused with tears, she apologized for her intrusion, and
begged permission to withdraw. When he found that she was seriously
intending to leave him, he rose from his chair, took her by both hands,
and led her to a seat.
"Lord Jeffery (loq.). -Don't go, my dear friend. I shall be right again
in another minute.
"Mrs. If. Siddons. -I had no idea that you had had any bad news of
cause for grief, or I would not have come. Is any one dead?




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      31
"Lord Jeffery. - Yes, indeed. I'm a great goose to have given way so;
but I could not help it. You'll be sorry to hear that little Nelly,' Boz's'
little Nelly, is dead.
"The fact was, Jeffery had just received the last number then out of'The Old Curiosity Shop,' and had been thoroughly overcome by its
pathos.
" Dickens began his career, when a youth of nineteen, under his uncle,
John Henry Barrow, who started' The Mirror of Parliament' in opposition to Iansard. Hansard always compiled his reports from the morning
newspapers, whereas Barrow engaged a special staff of able reporters,
sending each important oration in proof to its speaker for correction.
When Stanley fulminated his Philippic against O'Connell, it fell to young
Dickens's turn to report the last third of it. The proof of the whole
speech was forwarded to Mr. Stanley. He returned it to Barrow, with
the remark that the first two-thirds were so badly reported as to be unintelligible, but that if the gentleman who had so admirably reported the
last third of his speech could be sent to him, he would speak the rest of
it to him alone. Accordingly, at an hour appointed, young Dickens made
his appearance at Mr. Stanley's, note-book in hand. It was with evident
hesitation that the servant ushered him into the library, the tables.of
which were covered with newspapers.
"Presently the master of the house appeared, eyed the youth suspiciously, and said,'I beg pardon, but I had hoped to see the gentleman
who had reported part of my speech,' &c.'I am that gentleman,' retorted Dickens, turning red in the face, and feeling his dignity somewhat
offended.' Oh, indeed!' replied Mr. Stanley, pushing about the papers,
and turning his back to conceal an involuntary smile. It was not long
before Sir James Graham stepped in; and then Stanley began his speech.
At first he stood still, addressing one of the window-curtains as Mr.
Speaker. Then he walked up and down the room, gesticulating and declaiming with all the fire and force he had shown in the House of Commons. Graham, with the newspaper before him, followed and occasionally checked him, when he had forgotten some trifling point, or had
transposed one proposition in the place of another.
"When the entire speech had been fully reported, Stanley returned the
revise, with Dickens's corrected edition of the parts of the speech which
had been bungled, with a note to Barrow highly complimentary to the
stripling reporter, and with a shadowy prediction of a great career for
him in the future.
"I Dickens had totally forgotten this incident, until many years after,
he was invited to dine with Lord Derby for the first time. Having been
shown with the other guests before dinner into the library, he felt a
strange consciousness of having been in it before, which he could not
account for. He was in a state of bewilderment about it all dinner-time;
for he could not recall the circumstance which brought the reporting adventure to his mind. But, at all events, something did; and he reminded




32           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COM5PANY.
his host of:it. Lord Derby was delighted to recognize in his new friend
his boy-reporter, and told the story to a select few, who, with Dickens, had
stayed after the rest of the company had departed."
Mr. Samuel Carter Hall, in his "Memories,":has cast his flower upon
his great friend's grave, in a few passages full of tender feeling:" What a full, brilliant, useful life it was, that which endured no longer
here -on earth - than fifty-eight years! What a prodigious bequest he
has left! what a munificent gift, not to his country alone, but to all the
peoples of the world,'mankind, mankind his debtor to the end of time!'
I have applied these words to other great benefactors of the epoch; to
none with greater force or truth than to this great master and guide of
the hearts and minds of millions.
"So it is now, and so it will be forever I
" My memory of Charles Dickens may be compressed into brief space.
Within the last few months, he has received a hundred tributes, more
eloquent, more emphatic, and more powerful, than any I might write; and
if I could devote sufficient space to the subject, I should fill it by extracting passages, in menmoriam, from the testimonials laid by his contemporaries upon his grave. And that grave is in Westminster Abbey!
"' Ne'er to those dwellings where the mighty rest,
Since their foundations, came a nobler guest'
than he, who, on the 14th day of June, in the year of our Lord eighteen
hundred and seventy, was laid among illustrious compeers —those who
have been famous in war, and those who have obtained holier renown in
the victories of peace.
" He died in harness, when his fame was at its zenith, before age had,weakened power; and the'sudden death' may have been a merciful reward. No doubt he was another victim to long and hard head-work -
another proof that -
"' The brain o'erwrought
Preys on itself, and is consumed by thought.'
But let us picture the two years and two months of the death-bed of
Thomas Moore -the mind gone, or but glimmering now and then, in
half-consciousness, when he dimly recognized his'Bessy.' Let us imagine Robert Southey, crawling along his library, taking down one book
after another, in vain search for some long familiar passage, and sadly
murmuring, as he pressed his thin and shaking hand to his early-wrinkled
brow,'Memory, memory! where art thou gone?'
"We may be thankful that such mournful destiny was not that of
Charles Dickens.
" The death:- if the term must be applied to one who can never die -
of this largely-gifted and -large-hearted man carried deep grief into every




A DAY WITH  CHEIARLES DICKENS.                     33
circle,- not alone of the kingdom, but of the world. The highest and the
lowest of society alike felt they had lost a friend, - one who not only
ministered, and always rightly, to their intellectual enjoyments, but was
ever the firm yet genial advocate of humanity. His sympathies were
mainly, but by no means exclusively, with the humbler classes: he was
ever on the side of all who suffered wrong, ever the enemy of those by
whom it was inflicted. His satire - and he was often a keen satirist -
was never personal, either as regarded himself or the vices and follies he
assailed. Of him may be truly said what the poet said of Sheridan: in
the'combat,' his wit -
"'Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.'
And it is no exaggeration to apply to Charles Dickens the line that was
applied to William Shakspeare, -
"' He was not for an age, but for all time."'




34          THE BEST' OF ALL GOOD CO3MPANY.
DICKENS THE SPEAKER.
R. DICKENS never entered actively into political life, and
seldom disburdened himself of political utterances. He was
a stout and earnest Liberal, however. Perhaps he may
be best understood by the following admirable speech,
which he delivered in Drury Lane Theatre to a crowded
and enthusiastic audience on the 27th of June, 1855: —
" 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 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
imy 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 the 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 to 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




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                     35
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 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 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 ill-distributed, 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 able 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 a' School of Reform;' and we hope, before the play is
out, to improve that noble ~lord by our performances 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 piper, whom we always pay.
" Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as
my trade and calling is not associated with politics, perhaps it may be
useful for me to show how I came to 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. MIy 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 ghostly
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




36           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
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
awakening 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 recognized 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 excercise 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 honor of this country. I was reading, no
later than yesterday, the book of Mr. Pepys, which is rather a favorite of
mine, in which he, two hundred years ago, writing of the House of Commons, says,'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 mlan; because he says nothing is done, that he can
see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design.'
"Now, how it comes to pass that, after two hundred years, and many
years after a Reform Bill, the House of 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 analyze the
confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their: primitive gases its charming
influences on that honorable member who was once a candidate for your
-and my -independent vote and interest. I will not ask what is that
sectarian figure, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its
finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal alterations, involving all the rumors and definitions of Shakspeare'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




A DAY WITHI CIHARLES DICKENS.                     37
charges her on no accolunt 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 sufficiently 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 hustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage
in such cases. I hold that no power can deprive us of the rights 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 worn-out conventionalities.
" 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 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, newly buried, 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 I have so long heard! Try its
justice by the following example: -- Arespectable 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 moral equanimity
can bear it l 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 I 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 feeling.




38           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"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' 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, by-the-by, frequently suggested to me that
there is this difference between the bull of Spain and the bull of Nineveh,
that, whereas in the Spanish case the bull rushes at the scarlet, in the
Nineveh 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 for Administrative Reform, by
whomsoever produced, whensoever and wheresoever. I dare say, 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 for it 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; Walkingame, of'The Tutor's Assistant,' and well versed
in figures, was also born and died; a multitude of accountants, bookkeepers, 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 Ge6rge 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 ought to be continued, and whether a change ought not to be effected. 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 worn-out, wormeaten, rotten, old bits of wood? I dare say, there was a vast amount of
uninviting memoranduming and despatch-boxing 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




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      39
be carried away for firewood by the miserable people who live in the
neighborhood. 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 confidently burned. It came to pass that they
were burned in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, over-gorged
with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the pannelling; 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
woman, Britannia, hasn't got home to-night.
"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 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 field-day review of
reform, instead of an earnest, hard-fought 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 believe that it would be for the common weal.
" Said the noble lord at the head of the government, when Mr. Layard
asked him for a day for his motion,' Let the honorable gentleman find a
day for himself.'
"' Now, in the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed,
That he has grown so great?'
"If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing




40           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say,' First Lord, your duty 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 tooth-and-nail, when you can get it, see
that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this country, with its
seething, hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant,
its crowds of poor, and its crowds of wicked, woe the day when the 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."'
It is impossible to realize to the reader's mind, by printed words, the
enthusiasm with which this speech was received. Let us now pass to a
subject on which the speaker was quite at home.
NEWS AND ITS VENDORS. (SPOKEN MAY 20, I862.)
"When I had the honor 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 most speechless man
of my acquaintance.
" 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's-eye
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




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      41
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 newsvender'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 every
one. 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 A 1 at
Lloyds's, and anywhere else. Still glancing over the shoulder of my
friend the newsman, I find I am offered all kinds of house-lodging, clerks,
servants, and situations, which I can possibly or impossibly want. I
learn, to my intense gratification, that 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 cod-liver oil or Turkish baths, I am told where to get them,
and that, if I want an income of seven pounds a week, I may have it by
sending half a crown in postage-stamps. Then I look to the police intelligence; and I discover that I may bite off a living human nose cheaply,
but if I take off the dead nose of a pig or a calf from a shop window, 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. 0.' has most triumphantly exposed a
certain'J. 0. 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 knowl



42           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
edge 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 such little
geographical regions as India and China.
" Now, my friends, this is the glance over the newsman's shoulder 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, railwaystations, and at every turn. His profits are small, he has a great amount
of anxiety and pare, 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 infinitessimal. 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
newsvenders who are not members of the 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."
THANKS FOR HIS RECEPTION. (EDINBURGH, 1841.)
"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 have heard the'thoughts that breathed, words that burn,'
which he has uttered. 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 to
your cordial greeting, - possessing, Heaven knows, the will, and desiring
only to find the way.
"The way to your good opinion, favor, 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 en



A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      43
deared 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 connection, and that I had never known them
apart from you.
"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 byways 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 your Northern poet,"' The rank is hut the guinea stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.'
And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I
was right, or where could I have 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.
WAThen 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 griefs 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 I 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 endeavoring 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 approbation.




44           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"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 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 do assure you."
ON HIS OWN WORKS. (BOSTON, I842.)
"It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I dare say 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 mole-eyed 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 any



A DAY WITH CHIARLES DICKENS.                    45
thing 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 treading in the steps of those
great master-spirits who have gone before, we know by reference to all
the bright examples in our literature, from Shakspeare downward.
"There is one other point connected with the labors (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 favor 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 log-houses among the morasses, and
swamps, and dense 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 connection 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."
* "Master Humphrey's Clock," under which title "Barnaby Rudge" and " The Old
Curiosity Shop " originally appeared.




46           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
ON WASHINGTON IRVING.
"There is in this city [New York] 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 on Irving's shoulder] here he sits I
I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to see him here to-night
in this capacity.
"Washington IrvingI Why, gentleman, I don't go up stairs to bed
two nights out of the seven, - as a very creditable witness near at hand
can testify, -I say I do not go 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 Shakspeare'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 country-seat, where they have not been? Is
there no Bracebridge Hall in existence? Has it no ancient shades or
quiet streets?
" In bygone times, when Irving left that hall, he left, sitting in an old
oak chair, in a small parlor of the Boar's Head, a little man with a red
nose and an oil-skin hat. When I came away, he was sitting there still I
- not a man like him, but the same man —with the nose of immortal
redness, and the hat of an undying glaze I! 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 best respects to Washington Irving I
"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




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                    47
against his window, and gazes at the curtains, dark and heavy, and covered with mould; and when all the ghost stories that ever were told
come up before him, - amid all his thick-coming fancies, whom does he
think of? Washington Irving. Go farther still: go to the Moorish
fountains, sparkling full in the moonlight; go among the water-carriers
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
start up and pass before you in all their life and glory? 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 money-diggers? And what pen but his has made Rip van Winkle, playing at ninepins on that thundering afternoon, as much part and parcel of the Catskill
Mountains as any tree or crag that they can boast? "
DICKENS ON HIS EARLY LIFE AS A REPORTER.
"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 to-,
night 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 post-chaise-andfour, 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 good-natured
colleagues who chanced to be at leisure held a pocket-handkerchief over




48           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
my notebook, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them, on the whole 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 hearts I ever knew.
" Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these trivial things as an assurance
to you that I have never 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 to it, I have so retained, as that, I fully~
believe, I could resume it to-morrow, 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 finger
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 vocation of my youth is not a sentiment taken up to-night to
be thrown away to-morrow, 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 in the world,- the illustrious name of Mr. Russell."




A DAY WITHI  CHARLES DICKENS.                  49
THE MORAL OF HIS LIFE, AND HIS
BEQUEST TO POSTERITY.
Iq~-~a ~~    HE flowers still lay thick upon the new-made grave when
vij+Dean Stanley spoke the moral of the life of Charles
Dickens from the pulpit hard by, taking the parable of
the rich man and Lazarus for his text. "There are some
-   incidents of human life," said the preacher, "which almost
demand a special notice, from the depth and breadth of
the feeling which they awaken in the heart of the congregation. Such
was the ceremony, which, on Tuesday last, conveyed to his grave within
these walls, a lamented and gifted being, who had for years delighted and
instructed the generation to which he belonged. And if the scripture of
the day and the incident of the minute direct our minds to the same
thoughts, and mutually illustrate each other, the attraction is irresistible,
and the moral which each supplies is doubly enforced." The lessons the
eloquent can draw are those with which, with his permission, I'desire to
close this " Day with Charles Dickens," --- a day-that it is my fervent hope
will lead many a reader to pages full of beauty, truth, love, and wisdom,
and without a spot upon the corner of the least considered of them.
But first let me refer to two other preachers who found sermons in
the life of Charles Dickens.
From the pulpit of the Abbey, within sight of the grave, the Bishop
of Manchester, preaching from the words, " Great is the mystery of godliness," said: -
"It will not be out of harmony with the line of thought we have been
pursuing,- certainly it will be in keeping with the associations of this
place, dear to.Englishmen not only as one of the proudest Christian temples, but as containing the memorials of so many who, by their genius in
arts, or arms, or statesmanship, or literature, have made England what
she is, -if in the simplest and briefest words, I allude to that sad and
unexpected death which has robbed English literature of one of its
4




50           TTIE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
highest living ornaments, and the news of which, two mornings ago, must
have made every household in England feel as though they had lost a
personal friend. Ile has been called in one notice an apostle of the people. I suppose it is meant that he had a mission, but in a style and
fashion of his own; a gospel, a cheery, joyous, gladsome message, which
the people understood, and by which they could hardly help Being bettered: it was the gospel of kindliness, of brotherly love, of sympathy in
the widest sense of the word. I am sure I have felt in myself the healthful spirit of his teaching. Possibly we might not have been able to subscribe to the same creed in relation to God, but I think we should have
subscribed to the same creed in relation to man. He who has taught us
our duty to our fellow-men better than we knew it before; who knew so
well to weep With them that weep, and to rejoice with them that rejoice;
who has shown forth all his knowledge of the dark corners of the earth,
how much sunshine may rest upon the lowliest lot; who had such evident
sympathy with suffering, such natural instinct of purity, that there is
scarcely a page of the thousands he has written which might not be put
into the hands of a little child, - must be regarded by those who recognize
the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit as a teacher sent from God. He would
have been welcomed as a fellow-laborer in the common interests of humanity by Him who asked the question,'If a man love not his brother
whom he hath seen, how canll he love God whom he hath not seen? "'
The Rev. Henry White, chaplain to the House of Commons, in his
sermon at the Savoy Chapel, spoke of the death of Charles Dickens, and
said that, strange as it might sound, Mr. Dickens had by his writings done
essential service to the Christian Church. There was a purity and a
healthiness in his writings which were a natural consequence of his character; and this might be understood by the fact that one of the last letters
he wrote, if indeed not the very last, was written with a view to remove a
calumny that he had been unfaithful to Christian truth. Mr. Dickens,
the reverend chaplain said, had taught Christianity with much greater effect
than many priests had done.
Dean Stanley was unwell, and could not be distinctly heard when he
spoke his farewell over his illustrious friend's grave. That not one. syllable of such speaking should be lost to'the world, the following passages
prove: -
"There was a truth - let us freely confess it - in the old Puritan feeling against all exaggerated enjoyment of romances, as tending to relax
the fibre of the moral character. That was a wholesome restraint which
I remember in my childhood, which kept us from revelling in tales of
fancy till the day's work was over, and thus impressed upon us that the
reading of pleasant fictions was the holiday of life, and not its serious
business. It is this very thing which, as it constitutes the danger of ficti



A DAY WITII CHAItLES DICKENS.
tious narratives, constitutes also their power. They approach us at times
when we are indisposed to attend to anything else. They fill up those
odd moments of life which exercise, for good or evil, so wide an effect
over the whole, tenor of our course. Poetry may enkindle a loftier fire,
the drama may rivet the attention more firmly, science may open a wider
horizon, philosophy may touch a deeper spring; but no works are so penetrating, so pervasive, none reach so many homes, and attract so many
readers, as the romance of modern times. Those who read nothing else
read eagerly the exciting tale. Those whom sermons never reach, whom
history fails to arrest, are reached and arrested by the fictitious characters,
the stirring plot, of the successful novelist. It is this which makes a
wicked novel more detestable than almost any other form of wicked words
or deeds. It is this which gives even to a foolish or worthless novel a demoralizing force beyond its own contemptible demerits. It is {his which
makes a good novel -pure in style, elevating in thought, true in sentiment  one of the best boons to the Christian home and to the Christian
state."
Such boons has Dickens bequeathed, prodigally, to his country!
"But even thus, and even in this sacred place, it is good to remember
that, in the writings of him who is gone, we have had the most convincing proof that it is possible to have moved old and young to inextinguishable laughter without the use of a single expression which could defile
the purest or shock the most sensitive. Remember this, if there be any
who think that ypu cannot be witty without being wicked; who think
that in order to amuse the world and awaken the interest of hearers or
readers, you must descend to filthy jests, and unclean suggestions, and
debasing scenes. So may have thought some gifted novelists of former
times; but so thought not, so wrote not (to speak only of the departed)
Walter Scott, or Jane Austen, or Elizabeth Gaskell, or William Thackeray; so thought not, and so wrote not, the genial and loving humorist
whom we now mourn. However deep into the dregs of society his varied
imagination led him in his writings to descend, it still breathed an untainted atmosphere. He was able to show us, by his own example, that
even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters,
genius could be clean, and mirth could be innocent."
The following passage on the " advocate of the absent " will go straight
to the reader's heart: 
"It was the distinguishing glory of a famous Spanish saint, that she
was' the advocate of the absent.' That is precisely the advocacy of the
divine parable in the Gospels; the advocacy of these modern human parables, which in their humble measure represent. its spirit'; the advocacy
of the absent poor, of the neglected, of the weaker side, whom not seeing




52           TIHE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
we are tempted to forget. It was a fine trait of a noble character of our
own times, that, though full of interests, intellectual, domestic, social, the
distress of the poor of England, he used to say,'pierced through his
happiness, and haunted him day and night.' It is because this susceptibility is so rare, so difficult to attain, that we ought doubly to value those
who have the eye to see, and the ear to hear, and the tongue to. speak, and
the pen to describe, those who are not at hand to demand their own
rights, to set forth their own wrongs, to portray their own sufferihgs.
Such was he who lies yonder. By him that veil was rent asunder which
parts the various classes of society. Through his genius the rich man,
faring sumptuously every day, was made to see and feel the presence of
the Lazarus at his gate. The unhappy inmates of the workhouse, the
neglected children in the dens and caves of our great cities, the starved
and ill-used boys in remote schools, far from the observation of men, felt
that a new ray of sunshine was poured on their dark existence, a new
interest awakened in their forlorn and desolate lot. It was because an
unknown friend had pleaded their cause with a voice which rang through
the palaces of the great, as well as through the cottages of the poor. It
was because, as by a magician's wand, those gaunt figures and strange
faces had been, it may be sometimes in exaggerated forms, made to stand
and speak before those who hardly dreamed of their existence.
"Nor was it mere compassion that was thus evoked. As the same
parable which delineates the miseries of the outcast Lazarus tells us also
how-, under that external degradation, was nursed a spirit fit for converse
with the noble-minded and the gentle-hearted in the bosom of the Father
of the Faithful, so the same master-hand which drew the sorrows of the
English poor drew also the picture of the unselfish kindness, the courageous patience, the tender thoughtfulness, that lie concealed behind many
a coarse exterior, in many a rough heart, in many a degraded home."
And now we come to the closing passage, and to the end of our
"Day: ""As I sit not here in judgment on the exact place to be allotted in the
roll of history to that departing glory, neither do I sit in judgment on
that departing spirit. But there are some farewell thoughts which I
would fain express.
"Many, many are the, feet which have trodden and will tread the
consecrated ground around that narrow grave; many, many are the
hearts which both in the Old and in the New World are drawn towards
it, as towards the resting-place of a dear personal friend; many are the
flowers that have been strewed, many the tears shed, by the grateful
affection of'the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and those that had
none to help them.' May I speak to these a few sacred words which perhaps will come with a new meaning and a deeper force, because they
come from the lips of a lost friend -because they are the most solemn




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                    53
utterance of lips now forever closed in the grave? They are extracted
from'the will of Charles Dickens, dated May 12, 1869,' and they will be
heard by most here present for the first time. After the emphatic injunctions respecting' the inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private
manner' of his funeral, which were carried out to the very letter, he thus
continues: —' I direct that my name be inscribed in plain English letters
on my tomb.... I conjure my friends on no account to make me the
subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my
claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and
to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto. I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ; and I exhort my dear children humbly to try
to guide themselves by the teaching of the New Testament in its broad
spirit, and to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter
here or there.'
"In that simple but sufficient faith he lived and died; in that faith he
bids you live and die. If any of you have learned from his works the
value, the eternal value of generosity, purity, kindness, unselfishness, and
have learned to show these in your own hearts and lives, these are the best
monuments, memorials, and testimonials of the friend whom you loved,
and who loved, with a rare and touching love, his friends, his country, and
his fellow-men, - monuments which he would not refuse, and which the
humblest, the poorest, the youngest have it in their power to raise to his
memory."
Let the reader who has nct learned these lessons take to them with all
possible speed.




54           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
HIS WORKS.
MR. PICKWVICK  AND  MR. WELLER  ARE  SOMEWHAT  DECEIVED BY MR. JOB TROTTER. — PICKWICK PAPERS.
HERE is no month in the whole year, in which nature
~'~   }ll wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of'' R /" August. Spring has many beauties, and May is a fresh
and blooming month, but the charms of this time of. year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. August has no such advantage. It comes when we
remlember nothing but clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers;
when tire recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from
our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth; and
yet what a pleasant time it is! Orchards and corn-fields ring with the
hum of labor; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which
bow their branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves,
or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the
sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. A mellow softness appears to hang over the whole earth; the influence of the season seems to
extend itself to the very wagon, whose slow motion across the well-reaped
field is perceptible only to the eye, but strikes with no harsh sound upon
the ear.
As the coach rolls swiftly past the fields and orchards which skirt the
road, groups of women and children, piling the fruit in sieves, or gathering
the scattered ears of corn, pause for an instant from their labor, and shading the sun-burnt face with a still browner hand, gaze upon the passengers
with curious eyes, while some stout urchin, too small to work, but too
mischievous to be left at home, scrambles over the side of the basket in
which he has been deposited for security, and kicks and screams with delight. The reaper stops in his wtork, and stands with folded arms, looking at the vehicle as it whirls past; and the rough cart-horses bestow a
sleepy glance upon the smart coach team, which says, as plainly as a
horse's glance can, "it's all very fine to look at, but slow going, over a




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                     55
heavy field, is better than warm work like that, upon a dusty road, after
all." You cast a look behind you, as you turn a corner of the road.
The women andi,children have resumed their labor: the reaper once more
stoops to his work: the cart-horses have moved on: and all are again ivn
motion.
The influence of a scene like this, was not lost upon the well-regulated
mind of ir-. Pickwick. Intent upon the resolution he had formed, of exposing the real character of the nefarious Jingle, in any quarter in which
he might be pursuing his fraudulent designs, he sat at first taciturn and
contemplative, brooding over the means by which his purpose could be
best attained. By degrees his attention grew more and more attracted
by the objects around him: and at last he derived as much enjoyment
from the ride, as if it had been undertaken for the pleasantest reason in
the world.
"Delightful prospect, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Beats the chimley-pots, sir," replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat.
"I suppose you have hardly seen anything but chimney-pots and
bricks and mortar all your life, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, smiling.
"I worn't always a boots, sir," said Mr. Weller, with a shake of the
head. "I wos a wagginer's boy once."
"WVhen was that? " inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"When I wos first pitched neck and crop into the world,; to play at
leap-frog with its troubles," replied. Sam.  "I wos a carrier's boy at
startin', then a wagginer's, then a helper, then a boots. Now I'm a gen'lli'n's servant. I shall be a gen'l'm'n myself one of these days, perhaps,
with a pipe in my mouth, and a summer-house in the back garden. Who
knows? I'shouldn't be surprised, for one."
"You are quite a philosopher, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick.
"It runs in the family, I b'leve, sir," replied Mr. Weller. " My father's
wery much in that line, now. If my mother-in-law blows him up, he
whistles. She flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, and
gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into'sterics: andjhe
smokes wery comfortably'till she comes to agin. That's philosophy, sir,
ain't it?"
"A very good substitute for it, at all events," replied Mr. Pickwick,
laughing. "It must have been of great service to you, in the course of
your rambling life, Sam."
"Service, sir," exclaimed Sam. "You may say that. Arter I run
away from the carrier, and afore I took up with the wagginer, I had unfurnished lodgin's for a fortnight."
" Unfurnished lodgings? " said Mr. Pickwick.
"Yes,- the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge.  Fine sleeping-place;
within ten minutes' walk of all the public offices, only if there is any objection to it, it is that the sitivation's rayther too airy. I see some queer
sights there."
" Ah, I suppose you did," said Mr. Pickwick, with an air of consider
able interest.




56           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"Sights, sir," resumed Mr. Weller, " as'ud penetrate your benevolent
heart, and come out on the other side. You don't see the reg'lar wagrants there; trust'em, they knows better than that. Young beggers,
mhale and female, as hasn't made a rise in their profession, takes up their
quarters there sometimes: but it's generally the worn-out, starving, houseless creatures as rolls themselves in the dark corners o' them lonesome?
places- poor creeturs as ain't up to the twopenny rope."
"And pray, Sam, what is the twopenny rope? " inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"The twopenny rope, sir," replied Mr. Weller, " is just a cheap lodgin'
house, where the beds is twopence a night."
" What do they call a bed a rope for? " said Mr. Pickwick.
"Bless your innocence, sir, that ain't it," replied Sam. "Wen the lady
and gen'l'mn'n as keeps the Hot-el first begun business they used to make
the beds on the floor; but this wouldn't do at no price,'cos instead o'
taking a moderate two-penn'orth o' sleep, the lodgers used to lie there
half the day. So now they has two ropes,'bout six foot apart, and three
from the floor, which goes right down the room; and the beds are made of
slips of coarse sacking, stretched across'em."
"Well," said Mr. Pickwick.
"Well," said Mr. Weller, "the adwantage o' the plan's hobvious. At
six o'clock every mornin' they lets go the ropes at one end, and down
falls all the lodgers.'Consequence is, that being thoroughly waked, they
get up wery quietly, and walk away! Beg your pardon, sir," said Sam,
suddenly breaking off in his loquacious discourse. "Is this Bury St. Edmunds?"
"It is," replied Mr. Pickwick.
The coach rattled through the well-paved streets of a handsome little
town, of thriving and cleanly appearance, and stopped before a large inn
situated in a wide open street, nearly facing the old abbey.' And this," said Mr. Pickwick, looking up, " is the Angel! WVe alight
here, Sam. But some caution is necessary. Order a private room, and
do not mention my name. You understand."
"Right as a trivet, sir," replied Mr. WVeller, with a wink of intelligence;
and having dragged Mr. Pickwick's portmanteau from the hind boot, into
which it had been hastily thrown when they joined the coach at Eatanswill, Mr. Weller disappeared on his errand. A private room was speedily
engaged; and into it Mr. Pickwick was ushered without delay.
"Now, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, "the first thing to be done is to ""Order dinner, sir," interposed Mr. Weller. "It's wery late, sir."
"Ah, so it is," said Mr. Pickwick, looking at his watch. "You are
right, Sam."
"And. if I might adwise, sir," added Mr. Weller, "I'd just have a good
night's rest arterwards, and not begin inquiring arter this here deep'un'till mornin'. There's nothin' so refreshin' as sleep, sir, as the servant-girl
said afore she drank the egg-cupful o' laudanum."
"I think you are right, Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. "But I must first
ascertain that he is in the house, and not likely to go away."




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      57
"Leave that to me, sir," said Sam. "Let me order you a snug little
dinner, and make my inquiries below while it's a getting ready; I could
worm ev'ry secret out o' the boots's heart, in five minutes, sir."
"Do so," said Mr. Pickwick: and Mar. Weller at once retired.
In half an hour, Mir. Pickwick was seated at a very satisfactory dinner; and in three-quarters Mr. Weller returned with the intelligence that
lEa. Charles Fitz-Marshall had ordered his private room to be retained
for him, until further notice. He was going to spend the evening at some
private house in the neighborhood, had ordered the boots to sit up until
his return, and had taken his servant with him.
"Now, sir," argued Mr. Weller, when he had concluded his report,
"if I can get a talk with this here servant in the mornin', he'll tell me all
his master's concerns."
" How do you know that?" interposed Mr. Pickwick.
"Bless your heart, sir, servants always do," replied Mr. Weller.
"Oh, ah, I forgot that," said Mr. Pickwick. " Well."
"Then you can arrange what's best to be done, sir, and we can act according."
As it appeared that this was the best arrangement that could be made,
it was finally agreed upon. Mr. Weller, by his master's permission, retired to spend the evening in his own way; and was shortly afterwards
elected, by the unanimous voice of the assembled company, into the taproom chair, in which honorable post he acquitted himself so much to the
satisfaction of the gentlemen-frequenters, that their roars of laughter and
approbation penetrated to Mr. Pickwick's bed-roomn, and shortened the
term of his natural rest by at least three hours.
Early on the ensuing morning, Mr. Weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality, through the instrumentality of a halfpenny shower-bath (having induced a young gentleman
attached to the stable-department, by the offer of that coin, to pump over
his head and face, until he was perfectly restored), when he was attracted
by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-covered livery, who was
sitting on a bench in the yard, reading what appeared to be a hymn-book,
with an air of deep abstraction, but who occasionally stole a glance at the
individual under the pump, as if he took some interest in his proceedings,
nevertheless.
" You're a rum'un to look at, you are!" thought Mr. Weller, the first
time his eyes encountered the glance of the stranger in the mulberry suit:
who had a large, sallow, ugly face, very sunken eyes, and a gigantic head,
from which depended a quantity of lank, black hair. "You're a rum'un! " thought Mr. Weller; and thinking this, he went on washing himself, and thought no more about him.
Still the man kept glancing from his hymn-book to Sam, and from
Sam to his hymn-book, as if he wanted to open a. conversation. So at
last, Sam, by way of giving him an opportunity, said with a familiar
nod



58           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"How are you, governor?"
"I am happy to say, I am pretty well, sir," said the man, speaking with
great deliberation, and closing the book.  "I hope you are the same,
sir?"
"Why, if I felt less like a walking brandy-bottle, I shouldn't be quite
so staggery this mornin'," replied Sam. " Are you stoppin' in this house,
old'un? "
The mulberry man replied in the affirmative.
"How was it, you worn't one of us, last night? " inquired Sam, scrubbing his face with the towel. " You seem one of the jolly sort -looks
as conwivial as a live trout in a lime basket," added Mr. Weller in an
under tone.
"I was out last night, with my master," replied the stranger.
"What's his name? " inquired Mr. Weller, coloring up very red with
sudden excitement, and the friction of the towel combined.
"Fitz-Marshall," said the mulberry man.
"Give us your hand," said Mr. Weller, advancing; "I should like to
know you. I like your appearance, old fellow."
"Well, that is very strange," said the mulberry man, with great simplicity of manner. "I like yours so much, that I wanted to speak to you,
from the very first moment I saw you under the pump."
"Did you though? "
"Upon my word. Now, isn't that curious?"
"Wery sing'ler," said Sam, inwardly congratulating himself upon the
softness of the stranger. "What's your name, my patriarch?"
"Job."
"And a wery good name it is - only one I know, that ain't got a nickname to it. What's the other name? "
" Trotter," said the stranger. "What is yours?"
Sam bore in mind his master's caution, and replied -
"My name's Walker; my master's name's Wilkins. Will you take a
drop o' somethin' this mornin', Mr. Trotter? "
1Mr. Trotter acquiesced in this agreeable proposal: and having deposited his book in his coat-pocket, accompanied Mr. Weller to the tap,
where they were soon occupied in discussing an exhilarating compound,
formed by mixing together in a pewter vessel, certain quantities of British Hollands, and the fragrant essence of the clove.
" And what sort of a place have you got? " inquired Sam, as he filled
his companion's glass, for the second time.
"Bad," said Job, smacking his lips, "very bad."
"You don't mean that?'" said Sam.
"I do, indeed. Worse than that, my master's going to be married."
"l No."
"Yes; and worse than that, too, he's going to run away with an immense rich heiress, from boardino-school."
"What a dragon!" said Sam, refilling his companion's glass. "It's
some boarding-school in this town, I suppose, ain't it?"




A DAY WITH  CHARLES DICKENS.                     59
"Now, although this question was put in the most careless tone imaginable, Mr. Job Trotter plainly showed by gestures, that he perceived his
new friend's anxiety to draw forth an answer to it. Hie emptied his glass,
looked mysteriously at his companion, winked both of his small eyes, one
after the other, and finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were
working an inlaginary pump-handle: thereby intimating that he (Mr.
Trotter) considered himself as undergoing the process of being pumped,
by Mr. Samuel WVeller.
"No, no," said MIr. Trotter, in conclusion, "that's not to be told to
everybody. That is a secret - a great secret, Mr. Walker."
As the mulberry man said this, he turned his glass upside down, as a
means of remindingy his companion that he had nothing left wherewith to
slake his thirst. Sam observed the hint; and feeling the delicate manner
in which it was conZveyed, ordered the pewter vessel to be refilled, whereat
tihe small eyes of the mulberry man glistened.
" And so it's a secret? " said Sam.
"I should rather suspect it was," said the mulberry man, sipping his
liquor with a complacent face.
"I suppose your mas'r's wery rich?" said Sam.
Mr. Trotter smiled, and holding his glass in his left hand, gave four
distinct slaps on the pocket of his mulberry indescribables with his right,
as if to intimate that his master might have done the same without
alarming anybody much; by the chinking of coin.
"Ah," said Sam, "that's the game, is it?"
The mulberry man nodded significantly.
"W.Tell, and don't you think, old feller," remonstrated Mr. Weller,
"that if you let your master take in this here young lady, you're a precious rascal?"
"I know that," said Job Trotter, turning upon his companion a countenance of deep contrition, and groaning slightly. "I know that, and
that's what it is that preys upon my mind. But what am I to do?"
"Do!" said Samt; " di-wulge to the missis, and give up your master."
" WVho'd believe me? " replied Job Trotter. " The young lady's considered the very picture of innocence and discretion. She'd deny it, and
so would my master. Who'd believe me?  I should lose iny place, and
get indicted for a conspiracy, or some such thing; that's all I should take
by my motion."
" There's somethin' in that," said Sam, ruminating; " there's somethin'
in that."
"If I knew any respectable gentleman who would take the matter
up," continued MIr. Trotter, "I imight have some hope of preventing the
elopement; but there's the same difficulty, Mr. Walker, just the same. I
know no gentleman in this strange place, and ten to one if I did, whether
lie would believe my story."
"Come this way," said Sam, suddenly jumping up, and grasping the
mulberry man by the arm.  "IMy mas'r's the man you want, I see."




60           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
And after a slight resistance on the part of Job Trotter, Sam led his
newly-found friend to the apartment of Mr. Pickwick, to whom he presented him together with a brief summary of the dialogue we have just
repeated.
"I am very sorry to betray my master, sir," said Job Trotter, applying
to his eyes a pink-checked pocket-handkerchief about six inches square.
" The feeling does you a great deal of honor," replied Mr. Pickwick;
"but it is your duty, nevertheless."
"I know it is my duty, sir," replied Job, with great emotion. "TWe
should all try to discharge our duty, sir, and I humbly endeavor to discharge mine, sir; but it is a hard trial to betray a master, sir, whose
clothes you wear, and whose bread you eat, even though he is a scoundrel,
sir."
"You are a very good fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, much affected, " an
honest fellow."
"Come, come," interposed Sam, who had witnessed Mr. Trotter's tears
with considerable impatience, "blow this here water-cart bis'ness.  It
won't do no good, this won't."
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, reproachfully, "I am sorry to find that
you have so little respect for this young man's feelings."
"His feelin's is all wery well, sir," replied Mr. Weller; "and as
they're so wery fine, and it's a pity he should lose'em, I think he'd better
keep'em in his own buzzum than let'em ewaporate in hot water,'specially
as they do no good. Tears never yet wound up a clock, or worked a steam
ingen'. The next time you go out to a smoking party, young fellow, fill
your pipe with that'ere reflection; and for the present just put that bit
of pink gingham into your pocket.'T'ain't so handsome that you need
keep waving it about, as if you was a tight-rope dancer."
"My man is in the right," said Mr. Pickwick, accosting Job, " although
his mode of expressing his opinion is somewhat homely, and occasionally
incomprehensible."
"He is, sir, very right," said Mr. Trotter, "and I will give way no
longer."
"Very well," said Mr. Pickwick.  "Now, where is this boardingschool?"
"It is a large, old, red-brick house, just outside the town, sir," replied
Job Trotter.
" And when," said Mr. Pickwick, " when is this villainous design to be
carried into execution - when is this elopement to take place?"
"To-night, sir," replied Job.
"To-night! " exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.
"This very night, sir," replied Job Trotter. " That is what alarms
me so much."
"Instant measures must be taken," said Mr. Pickwick. "I will see
the lady who keeps the establishment immediately."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Job, "but that course of proceeding
will never do."




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      61
" Why not? " inquired Mr. Pickwick.
" My master, sir, is a very artful man."
"I know he is," said Mr. Pickwick.
"And he has so wound himself round the old lady's heart, sir," resumed Job, "that she would believe nothing to his prejudice, if you went
down on your bare knees, and swore it; especially as you have no proof
but the word of a servant, who, for anything she knows (and my master
would be sure to say so), was discharged for some fault, and does this in
revenge."
"What had better be done, then? " said Mr. Pickwick.
"Nothing but taking him in the very fact of eloping, will convince
the old lady, sir," replied Job.
"All them old cats will run their heads agin mile-stones," observed
Mi. Weller in a parenthesis.
"But this taking him in the very act of elopement, would be a very
difficult thing to accomplish, I fear," said Mr. Pickwick.
"I don't know, sir," said Mr. Trotter, after a few moments' reflection.
"I think it might be very easily done."
" How? " was Mr. Pickwick's inquiry.
"Why," replied Mr. Trotter, "my master and I, being in the confidence of the two servants, will be secreted in the kitchen at ten o'clock.
When the family have retired to rest, we shall come out of the kitchen,
and the young lady out of her bed-room. A post-chaise will be waiting,
and away we go."
"Well? " said MIr. Pickwick.
W" Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were in waiting in the
garden behind, alone""Alone," said Mr. Pickwick. "Why alone?"
"I thought it very natural," replied Job, "that the old lady wouldn't
like such an unpleasant discovery to be made before more persons than
can possibly be helped. The young lady'too, sir, - consider her feelings."
"You are very right," said Mr. Pickwick. " The consideration evinces
your delicacy of feeling. Go on: you are very right."
"Well, sir, I have been thinking that if you were waiting in the back
garden alone, and I was to let you in, at the door which opens into it,
from the end of the passage, at exactly half-past eleven o'clock, you would
be just in the very moment of time to assist me in frustrating the designs
of this bad man, by whom I have been unfortunately ensnared." Here
Mr. Trotter sighed deeply.
" Don't distress yourself on that account," said Mr. Pickwick, "if he
had one grain of the delicacy of feeling which distinguishes you, humble
as your station is, I should have some hopes of him."
Job Trotter bowed low: and in spite of Mr. Weller's previous remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes.
"I never see such a feller," said Sam. "Blessed if I don't think he's
got a main in his head as is always turned on."




62           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"Sam," said Mlr. Pickwick, with great severity. " Hold your tongue."
"Wery well, sir," replied,Mr. Weller.
"I don't like this plan," said Mr. Pickwick, after deep meditation.
"Why cannot I communicate with the young lady's friends?"
"Because they live one hundred miles from here, sir," responded Job
Trotter.
"That's a clincher," said Mir. Weller, aside.
"Then this garden," resumed Mlr. Pickwick. "H ow am I to get into
it? "
"The wall is very low, sir, and your servant will give you a leg up."
"My servant will give me a leg up," repeated Mr. Pickwick, mechanically. " You will be sure to be near this door that you speak of? "
"You cannot mistake it, sir; it's the only one that opens into the
garden. Tap at it when you hear the clock strike, and I will open it instantly."
" I don't like the plan," said Mr. Pickwick; "but as I see no other, and
as the happiness of this young lady's whole life is at stake, I adopt it.
I shall be sure to be there."
Thus, for the second time, did Mr. Pickwick's innate good-feeling involve him in an enterprise from which he would most willingly have stood
aloof.
"What is the name of the house? " inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"Westgate House, sir. You turn a little to the right when you get to
the end of the town; it stands by itself, some little distance off the high
road, with the name on a brass plate on the gate."
" I know it," said MIr. Pickwick. " I observed it once before, when I
was in this town. You may depend upon me."
Mir. Trotter made another bow, and turned to depart, when Mr. Pickwick thrust a guinea into his hand.'" You're a fine fellow," said Mr. Pickwick, " and I admire your goodness of heart. No thanks. Remember -eleven o'clock."
"There is no fear of my forgetting it, sir," replied Job Trotter. With
these words he left the room followed by Sam.
" I say," said the latter, "not a bad notion that'ere crying. I'd cry
like a rain-water spout in a shower on such good terms. How do you do
it? "
" It comes from the heart, Mr. Walker," replied Job solemnly. " Good
morning, sir."
"You're a soft customer, you are; - we've got it all out o' you, anyhow," thought Mr. Weller, as Job walked away.
We cannot state the precise nature of the thoughts which passed
through Mr. Trotter's mind, because we don't know what they were.
The day wore on, evening came, and at a little before ten o'clock Sam
W]eller reported that Mr. Jingle and Job had gone out together, that
their luggage was packed up, and that they had ordered a chaise. The
plot was evidently in execution, as ilr. Trotter had foretold.




A DAY WITtI CHARLES DICKENS.                     63
Half-past ten o'clock arrived, and it was time for Mr. Pickwick to
issue forth on his delicate errand. Resisting Sam's tender of his greatcoat, in order that he might have no incumbrance in scaling the wall, he
set forth, followed by his attendant.
There was a bright moon, but it was behind the clouds. It was a fine
dry night, but it was most uncommonly dark. Paths, hedges, fields,
houses, and trees, were enveloped in one deep shade. The atmosphere
was hot and sultry, the summer lightning quivered faintly on the verge
of the horizon, and was the only sight that varied the dull gloom in which
everything was wrapped - sound there was none, except the distant barking of some restless house-dog.
They found the house, read the brass plate, walked round the wall,
and stopped at that portion of it which divided them from the bottom of
the garden.
"You will return to the inn, Sam, when you have assisted me over,"
said Mr. Pickwick.
"Very well, sir."
"And you will sit up till I return."
"Cert'nly, sir."
"Take hold of my leg; and, when I say,'Over,' raise me gently."
"All right, sir."
Having settled these preliminaries, Mr. Pickwick grasped the top of
the wall, and gave the word " Over," which was very literally obeyed.
Whether his body partook in some degree of the elasticity of his mind,
or whether Mr. Weller's notions of a gentle push were of a somewhat
rougher description than Mr. Pickwick's, the immediate effect of his assistance was to jerk that immortal gentleman completely over the wall
on1 to the bed beneath, where, after crushing three gooseberry-bushes and
a rose-tree, he finally alighted at full length.
" "You ha'nt hurt yourself, I hope, sir? " said Sam, in a loud whisper,
as soon as he recovered from the surprise consequent upon the mysterious
disappearance of his master.
" I have not hurt myself, Sam, certainly," replied Mr. Pickwick, from
the other side of the wall, "but I rather think that you have hurt me."
"I hope not, sir," said Sam.
"Never mind," said Mr. Pickwick, rising, "it's nothing but a few
scratches. Go away, or we shall be overheard."
"Good-bye, sir."
" Good-bye."
"With stealthy steps Sam Weller departed, leaving Mr. Pickwick
alone in the garden.
Lights occasionally appeared in the different windows of the house, or
glanced from the staircases, as if the inmates were retiring to rest. Not
caring to go too. near the door, until the appointed time, Mr. Pickwick
crouched into an angle of the wall, and awaited its arrival.
It was a situation which might well have depressed the. spirits of many




64           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
a man. Ir. Pickwick, however, felt neither' depression nor misgiving.
He knew that his purpose was in the main a good one, and he placed implicit reliance on the high-minded Job. It was dull, certainly; not to say
dreary; but a contemplative man can always employ himself in meditation. Mr. Pickwick had meditated himself into a doze, when he was
roused by the chimes of the neighboring church ringing out the hour —
half-past eleven.
" That is the time," thought Mr. Pickwick, getting cautiously on his
feet. He looked up at the house. The lights had disappeared, and the
shutters were closed - all in bed, no doubt. He walked on tip-toe to the
door, and gave a gentle tap. Two or three minutes passing without, any
reply, he gave another tap rather louder, and then another rather louder
than that.
At length the sound of feet was audible upon the stairs, and then the
light of a candle shone through the key-hole of the door. There was a
good deal of unchaining and unbolting, and the door was slowly opened.
Now the door opened outwards; and as the door opened wider and
wider, Mr. Pickwick receded behind it, more and more. What was his
astonishment when he just peeped out, by way of caution, to see that the
person who had opened it was -not Job Trotter, but a servant-girl with
a candle in her hand! Mr. Pickwick drew in his head again, with the
swiftness displayed by that admirable melodramatic performer, Punch,
when he lies in wait for the flat-headed comedian with the tin box of
music.
"It must have been the cat, Sarah," said the girl, addressing herself to
some one in the house. "Puss, puss, puss,- tit, tit, tit."
But no animal being decoyed by these blandishments, the girl slowly
closed the door, and refastened it; leaving Mlr. Pickwick drawn up straight
against the wall.
" This is very curious," thought Mr. Pickwick. "They are sitting up
beyond their usual hour, I suppose. Extremely unfortunate, that they
should have chosen this night, of all others, for such a purpose - exceedingly."  And with these thoughts, Mr. Pickwick cautiously retired to the
angle of the wall in which he had been before ensconced; waiting until
such time as he might deem it safe to repeat the signal.
He had not been here five minutes, when a vivid flash of lightning
was followed by a loud peal of thunder that crashed and rolled away in
the distance with a terrific noise -then came another flash of lightning,
brighter than the other, and a second peal of thunder louder than the
first; and then down come the rain, with a force and fury that swept
everything before it.
Mr. Pickwick was perfectly aware that a tree is a very dangerous
neighbor in a thunder-storm. He had a tree on his right, a tree on his
left, a third before him, and a fourth behind. If he remained where he
was, he inight fall the victim of an accident: if he showed himself in the
centre of the garden, he might be consigned to a constable; — once or




A DAY WITHI CHARLES DICKENS.                    65
twice he tried to scale the wall, but having no other legs this time, than
those with which Nature had furnished him, the only effect of his struggles was to inflict a variety of very unpleasant gratings on his knees and
shins, and to throw him into a state of the most profuse perspiration.
"What a dreadful situation," said Mr. Pickwick, pausing to wipe his
brow after this exercise. He looked up at the house — all was dark.
They must be gone to bed now. He would try the signal again.
He walked on tip-toe across the moist gravel, and tapped at the door.
He held his breath and listened at the key-hole. No reply: very odd.
Another knock. He listened again. There was a low whispering inside,
and then a voice cried"Who's there?"
"That's not Job," thought Mr. Pickwick, hastily drawing himself
straight up against the wall again. "It's a woman."
He had scarcely had time to form this conclusion, when a window
above stairs was thrown up, and three or four female voices repeated the
query - " Who's there?"
Mr. Pickwick dared not move hand or foot. It was clear that the whole
establishment was roused. He made up his mind to remain where he
was, until the alarm had subsided; and then by a supernatural effort, to
get over the wall, or perish in the attempt.
Like all Mr. Pickwick's determinations, this was the best that could
be made under the circumstances; but, unfortunately, it was founded
upon the assumption that they would not venture to open the door again.
What was his discomfiture, when he heard the chains and bolts withdrawn, and saw the door slowly opening, wider and wider! He retreated
into the corner, step by step; but, do what he would, the interposition of
his own person prevented its being opened to its utmost width.
"Who's there'? " screamed a numerous chorus of treble voices from
the staircase inside, consisting of the spinster lady of the establishment,
three teachers, five female servants, and thirty boarders, all half-dressed,
and in a forest of curl-papers.
Of course, Mr. Pickwick didn't say who was there: and then the burden of the chorus changed into - "Lor'! I am so frightened."
" Cook," said the lady abbess, who took care to be on the top stair,
the very last of the group-" Cook, why don't you go a little way into
the garden?"
"Please, ma'am, I don't like," responded the cook.' Lor', what a stupid thing that cook is! " said the thirty boarders.
"Cook," said the lady abbess, with, great dignity; " don't answer me
if you please. I insist upon your looking into the garden immediately."
Here the cook began to cry, and the house-maid said it was "a
shame!" for which partisanship she received a month's warning on the
spot.
"Do you hear, cook? " said the lady abbess, stamping her foot impatiently.
5




66           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"Don't you hear your missis, cook? " said the three teachers.
"What an impudent thing that cook is I " said the thirty boarders.
The unfortunate cook, thus strongly urged, advanced a step or two,
and holding her candle just where it prevented her from seeing anything at
all, declared there was nothing there, and it must have been the wind. The
door was just going to be closed in consequence when an inquisitive
boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful
screaming, which called back the cwok and housemaid, and all the more
adventurous, in no time.
"What is the matter with Miss Smithers? " said the lady abbess, as
the aforesaid Miss Smithers proceeded to go into hysterics of four young
lady power.
"Lor', Miss Smithers, dear," said the other nine-and-twenty boarders.
"Oh, the man - the man - behind the door," screamed Miss Smithers.
The lady abbess no sooner heard this appalling cry, than she retreated
to her own bed-room, double-locked the door, and fainted away comfortably. The boarders, and the teachers, and the servants, fell back upon
the stairs, and upon each other; and never was such a screaming, and
fainting, and struggling, beheld. In the midst of the tumult, Mr. Pickwick emerged from his concealment, and presented himself amongst
them.
" Ladies - dear ladies," said Mr. Pickwick.
" Oh, he says we're dear," cried the oldest and ugliest teacher. " Oh,
the wretch! "
"Ladies," roared Mr. Pickwick, rendered desperate by the danger of,
his situation. "Hear me. I am no robber. I want the lady of the
house."
"Oh, what a ferocious monsterI" screamed another teacher.  "He
wants Miss Tomkins."
Here there was a general scream.
"Ring the alarm bell, somebody! " cried a dozen voices.
" Don't - don't," shouted Mr. Pickwick. "Look at me. Do I look
like a robber? My dear ladies- you may bind me hand and leg, or lock
me up in a closet, if you like. Only hear what I have got to say - only
hear me."
"How did you come in our garden?" faltered the housemaid.
"Call the lady of the house, and I'll tell her everything - everything: "
said Mr. Pickwick, exerting his lungs to the utmost pitch. "Call heronly be quiet, and call her, and you shall hear everything."
It might have been Mr. Pickwick's appearance, or it might have been
his manner, or it might have been the temptation - irresistible to a
female mind - of hearing'something at present enveloped in mystery, that
reduced the more reasonable portion of the establishment (some four individuals) to a state of comparative quiet. By them it was proposed, as
a test of Mr. Pickwick's sincerity, that he should immediately submit to
personal restraint; and that gentleman having consented to hold a con



A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKE{NS.                     67
ference with Miss Tomkins, from the interior of a closet in which the
day boarders hung their bonnets and sandwich-bags, he at once stepped
into it, of his own accord, and was securely locked in. This revived the
others; and Miss Tomkins having been brought to, and brought down,
the conference began.
" What did you do in my garden, Man?" said Miss Tomnkins, in a
faint voice.
"I came to warn you that one of your young ladies was going to elope
to-night," replied Mrh. Pickwick, from the interior of the closet.
"Elope!" exclaimed Miss Tomkins, the three teachers, the thirty
boarders, and the five servants. "Who with?"
"Your friend, Mr. Charles Fitz-Marshali."
" i y friend! 1 don't know any such person."
" Well; Mr. Jingle, then."
"I never heard the name in my life."
" Then, I have been deceived and deluded," said iMr. Pickwick. "I
have been the victim of a conspiracy - a foul and base conspiracy. Send
to the Angel, my dear ma'am, if you don't believe me. Send to the Angel
for Mir. Pickwick's man-servant, I implore you, ma'am."
" He must be respectable -he keeps a man-servant," said Miss Tomkins to the writing and ciphering governess.
" It's my opinion, Miss Tomlins," said the writing and ciphering governess, "that his man-servant keeps him. I think he's a madman, /liiss
Tomkins, and the other's his keeper."
" I think you are very right, Miss Gwynn," responded Miss Tomkins.
"Let two of the servants repair to the Angel, and let the others remain
here to protect us."
So two of the servants were despatched to the Angel in search of Mr.
Samuel %Weller: and the remaining three stopped behind to protect Miss
Tomkins, and the three teachers, and the thirty boarders. And Mr.
Pickwick sat down in the closet, beneath a grove of sandwich bags, and
awaited the return of the messengers, with all the philosophy and fortitude he could summon to his aid.
An hour and a half elapsed before they came back, and when they did
come, Mr. Pickwick recognized, in addition to the voice of Mr. Samuel
Weller, two other voices, the tones of which struck familiarly on his ear;
but whose they were, he could not, for the life of him, call to mind.
A very brief conversation ensued. The door was unlocked. Mr.
Pickwick stepped out of the closet, and found himself in the presence of
the whole establishment of Westgate House, Mr. Samuel Weller, and -
old Wardle, and his destined son-in-law, Mr. Trundle!
"lMly dear friend," said Mr. Pickwick, running forward and grasping
W'Vardle's hand, "my dear friend, pray, for Heaven's sake, explain to this
lady the unfortunate and dreadful situation in which I am placed. You
must have heard it from my servant; say, at all events, my dear fellow,
that I am neither a robber nor a madman."




68           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"I have said so, my dear friend. I have said so already," replied Mr.
Wardle, shaking the right hand of his friend, while Mr. Trundle shook
the left.
"And whoever says, or has said, he is," interposed Mr. Weller, stepping forward, "says that which is not the truth, but so far from it, on the
contrary, quite the rewerse. And if there's any number o' men on these
here premises as has said so, I shall be wery happy to give'em all a wery
convincing proof o' their being mistaken, in this here wery room, if these
wery respectable ladies'll have the goodness to retire, and order'em up,
one at a time."  Having delivered this defiance with great volubility, Mr.
Weller struck his open palm  emphatically with his clenched fist, and
winked pleasantly on Miss Tomkins: the intensity of whose horror at his
supposing it within the bounds of possibility that there could be any men
on the premises of Westgate House Establishment for Young Ladies, it
is impossible to describe.
Mr. Pickwick's explanation having already been partially made was
soon concluded. But neither in the course of his walk home with his
friends, nor afterwards when seated before a blazing fire at the supper he
so much needed, could a single observation be drawn from him. He
seemed bewildered and amazed. Once, and only once, he turned round
to Mr. Wardle, and said,"How did you come here?"
" Trundle and I came down here, for some good shooting on the first,"
replied Wardle. "We arrived to-night, and were astonished to hear from
your servant that you were here too. But I am glad you are," said the
old fellow, slapping him on the back. "I am glad you are. We shall
have a jovial party on the first, and we'll give Winkle another chance —
eh, old boy? "
Mir. Pickwick made no reply; he did not even ask after his friends at
Dingley Dell, and shortly afterwards retired for the night, desiring Sam
to fetch his candle when he rung.
The bell did ring in due course, and Mr. Weller presented himself.
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, looking out from under the bed-clothes.
"Sir," said Mr. Weller.
Mr. Pickwick paused, and Mr. Weller snuffed the candle.
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick again, as if with a desperate effort.
"Sir," said Mr. Weller once more.
"Where is that Trotter?"
"Job, sir?"
" Yes."
" Goine, sir."
" With his master, I suppose? "
" Friend or master, or whatever he is, he's gone with him," replied Mr.
Weller. " There's a pair on'em, sir."
"Jingle suspected my design, and set that fellow on you, with this
story, I suppose?" said Mr Pickwick half choking.




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                     69
"Just that, sir," replied Mr. Weller.
"It was all false, of course?"
"All, sir," replied Mr. Weller. " Reg'lar do, sir; artful dodge."
"I don't think he'll escape us quite so easily the next time, Sam?"
said Mr. Pickwick.
"I don't think he will, sir."
" Whenever I meet that Jingle again, wherever it is," said Mr. Pickwick, raising himself in bed, and indenting his pillow with a tremendous
blow, "I'll inflict personal chastisement on him in addition to the exposure he so richly merits. I will or my name is not Pickwick."
"And whenever I catches hold o' that there melan-cholly chap with
the black hair," said Sam, "if I don't bring some real water into his eyes,
for once in a way, my name ain't Weller. Good night, sir! "
THE ENDING OF THE RETURN MATCH BETWEEN MR
WELLER AND  MR. TROTTER.  PICKWICK PAPERS.
"Stay!" said Mr. Pickwick.
Jingle stopped.
"I might," said'Mr. Pickwick, "have taken a much greater revenge
for the treatment I have experienced at your hands, and that of your
hypocritical friend there."
Job Trotter bowed with great politeness, and laid his hand upon his
heart.
"I say," said 3Mr. Pickwick, growing gradually angry, "that I might
have taken a greater revenge, but I content myself with exposing you,
which I consider a duty I owe to society. This is a leniency, sir, which I
hope you will remember."
NVhen Mr. Pickwick arrived at this point, Job Trotter, with facetious
gravity, applied his hand to his ear, as if desirous not to lose a syllable
he uttered.
"And I have only to add, sir," said Mr. Pickwick, now thoroughly
angry, " that I consider you a rascal and a - a ruffian - and - and worse
than any man I ever saw, or heard of, except that pious and sanctified
vagabond in the mulberry livery."
"Ha! ha! " said Jingle, " good fellow, Pickwick- fine heart - stout
old boy - but must not be passionate - bad thing, very -bye, bye - see
you again some day - keep up your spirits - now, Job - trot! "
With these words, Mr. Jingle stuck on his hat in the old fashion, and
strode out of the room. Job Trotter paused, looked round, smiled, and
then with a bow of mock solemnity to Mr. Pickwick and a wink to Mr.
Weller, the audacious slyness of which baffles all description, followed
the footsteps of his hopeful master.




70           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick, as Mr. Weller was following.
" Sir."
"Stay here."
Mr. Weller seemed uncertain.
"Stay here," repeated Mr Pickwick.
"Mayn't I polish that ere Job off, in the front garden?" said Mr.
Weller.
" Certainly not," replied Mr. Pickwick.
"Mayn't I kick him out o' the gate, sir? " said Mr. Weller.
"Not on any account," replied his master.
For the first time since his engagement, Mr. Weller looked, for a moment, discontented and unhappy. But his countenance immediately
cleared up; for the wily Mr. Muzzle, by concealing himself behind the
street door, and rushing violently out at the right instant, contrived with
great dexterity to overturn both Mr. Jingle and his attendant, down the
flight of steps, into the American aloe tubs that stood beneath.
THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF SALMON. —PICKWICK PAPERS.
Eleven - twelve - one o'clock had struck, and the gentlemen had not
arrived. Consternation sat on every face. Could they have been waylaid
and robbed?  Should they send men and lanterns in every direction by
which they could be supposed likely to have travelled home? or should
they -Hark! there they were. What could have made them so late?
A strange voice, too! To whom could it belong? They rushed into the
kitchen whither the truants had repaired, and at once obtained rather
more than a glimmering of the real state of the case.
~ Mr. Pickwick, with his hands in his pockets, and his hat cocked completely over his left eye, was leaning against the dresser, shaking his head
from side to side, and producing a constant succession of the blandest
and most benevolent smiles, without being moved thereunto by any discernible cause or pretence whatsoever; old Mr. Wardle, with a highlyinflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman,
muttering protestations of eternal friendship; Mr. Winkle, supporting
himself by the eight-day clock, was feebly invoking destruction upon the
head of any member of the family who should suggest the propriety of
his retiring for the night; and Mr. Snodgrass had sunk into a chair, with
an expression of the most abject and hopeless misery that the human
mind can imagine, portrayed in every lineament of his expressive face.
"Is anything the matter?" inquired the three ladies.
"Nothing the matter," replied Mr. Pickwick.  "We - we're - all
right, -I say, Wardle, we're all right, ain't we?"
"I should think so," replied the jolly host. "My dears, here's my




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                     71
friend, Mr. Jingle- Mr. Pickwick's friend, Mr. Jingle, come'pon -little
visit."
"Is anything the matter with Mr. Snodgrass, sir?" inquired Emily,
with great anxiety.
"lNothing the matter, ma'am," replied the stranger. " Cricket dinner
- glorious party - capital songs - old port - claret - good - very good
- wille, ma'an - wine."'
"It wasn't the wine," murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice.
"It was the salmon." (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these
cases.)
" Hadn't they better go to bed, ma'am? " inquired Emma. "Two of
the boys will carry the gentlemen up-stairs."
"I won't go to bed," said Mr. Winkle, firmly.
"No living boy shall carry me," said Mr. Pickwick, stoutly; and he
went on smiling as before.
" Hurrah! " gasped Mr. Winkle, faintly.
" Hurrah! " echoed Mr. Pickwick, taking off his hat and dashing it on
the floor, and insanely casting his spectacles into the middle of the kitchen.
At this humorous feat he laughed outright.
",,Let's -have -'nother - bottle," cried Mr. Winkle, commencing in
a very loud key, and ending in a very faint one. His head dropped upon
his breast; and, muttering his invincible determination not to go to his
bed, and a sanguinary regret that he had not " done for old Tupman " in
the morning, he fell fast asleep; in which condition he was borne to his
apartment by two young giants under the personal superintendence of the
fat boy, to whose protecting care Mr. Snodgrass shortly afterwards confided his own person. Mr. Pickwick accepted the proffered arm of Mr.
Tupman and quietly disappeared, smiling more than ever; and aMr. Wardie, after taking as affectionate a leave of the whole family as if he were
ordered for immediate execution, consigned to Mr. Trundle the honor of
conveying him up-stairs, and retired with a very futile attempt to look
impressively solemn and dignified.
THE ELECTION FOR BEADLE. - SKETCHES BY BOZ.
A great event has recently occurred in our parish. A contest of paramount interest has just terminated; a parochial convulsion has taken
place. It has been succeeded by a glorious triumph, which the country
- or at least the parish - it is all the same - will long remember. We
have had an election, an election for beadle. The supporters of the old
beadle system have been defeated in their stronghold, and the advocates
of the great new beadle principles have achieved a proud victory.
Our parish, which, like all other parishes, is a little world of its own,




72           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
has long been divided into two parties, whose contentions, slumbering for
a while, have never failed to burst forth with unabated vigor, on any occasion on which they could by possibility be renewed. Watching-rates,
lighting-rates, paving-rates, sewers'-rates, church-rates, poor's-ratesall sorts of rates, have been in their turns the subjects of a grand struggle; and as to questions of patronage, the aspersity and determination
with which they have been contested is scarcely credible.
The leader of the official party — the steady advocate of the churchwardens, and the unflinching supporter of the overseers - is. an old gentleman who lives in our row. He owns some half-dozen houses in it, and
always walks on the opposite side of the way, so that he may be able to
take in a view of the whole of his property at once. He is a tall, thin,
bony man, with an interrogative nose, and little restless perking eyes,
which appear to have been given him for the sole purpose of peeping into
other people's affairs with. He is deeply impressed with the importance
of our parish business, and prides himself, not a little, on his style of addressing the parishioners in vestry assembled. His views are rather confined than extensive; his principles more narrow than liberal. He has
been heard to declaim very loudly in favor of the liberty of the press,
and advocates the repeal of the stamp-duty on newspapers, because the
daily journals who now have a monopoly of the public, never give verbatim
reports of vestry meetings. He would not appear egotistical for the
world, but at the same time he must say, that there are speeches - that
celebrated speech of his own, on the emoluments of the sexton, and the
duties of the office, for instance -which might be communicated to the
public, greatly to their improvement and advantage.
His great opponent in public life is Captain Purday, the old naval officer on half-pay to whom we have already introduced our readers. The
captain being a determined opponent of the constituted authorities, whoeyer they may chance to be, and our other friend being their steady supporter with an equal disregard of their individual merits, it will readily be
supposed, that occasions for their coming into direct collision are neither
few nor far between. They divided the vestry fourteen times on a motion
for heating the church with warm water instead of coals; and made
speeches about liberty and expenditure, and prodigality and hot water,
which threw the whole parish into a state of excitement. Then the captain, when he was on the visiting committee, and his opponent overseer,
brought forward certain distinct and specific charges relative to the management of the workhouse, boldly expressed his totalwant. of confidence
in the existing authorities, and moved for "a copy of the recipe by which
the paupers' soup was prepared, together with any documents relating
thereto." This the overseer steadily resisted; he fortified himself by
precedent, appealed to the established usage, and declined to produce the
papers, on the ground of the injury that would be done to the public service, if documents of a strictly private nature, passing between the master
of the workhouse and the cook, were to be thus dragged to light on the




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      73
motion of any individual member of the vestry. The motion was lost
by a majority of two; and then the captain, who never allows himself to'
be defeated, moved for a committee of inquiry into the whole subject.
The affair grew serious: the question was discussed at meeting after
meeting, and vestry after vestry; speeches were made, attacks repudiated,
personal defiances exchanged, explanations received, and the greatest excitement prevailed, until at last, just as the question was going to be
finally decided, the vestry found that somehow or other, they had become
entangled in a point of form, from which it was impossible to escape
with propriety. So, the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature
of the whole proceedings.
This was the state of affairs in our parish a week or two since, when
Simmons, the beadle, suddenly died. The lamented deceased had overexerted himself, a day or two previously, in conveying an aged female,
highly intoxicated, to the strong room of the workhouse. The excitement thus occasioned, added to a severe cold, which this indefatigable
officer had caught in his capacity of director of the parish engine, by inadvertently playing over himself instead of a fire, proved too much for a
constitution already enfeebled by age; and the intelligence was conveyed
to the Board one evening that Simmons had died, and left his respects.
The breath was scarcely out of the body of the deceased functionary,
when the field was filled with competitors for the vacant office, each of
whom rested his claims to public support entirely on the number and extent of his family, as if the office of beadle were originally instituted as
an encouragement for the propagation of the human species. "Bung for
Beadle. Five small children "-"Hopkins for Beadle.  Seven small
children!! "-" Timkins for Beadle. Nine small children!!!" Such were
the placards in large black letters on a white ground, which were plentifully pasted on the walls, and posted in the windows of the principal
shops. Timkins's success was considered certain: several mothers of
families half promised their votes, and the nine small children would
have run over the course, but for the production of another placard, announcing the appearance of a still more meritorious candidate. " Spruggins for Beadle. Ten small children (two of them twins), and a wife!! 1"
There was no resisting this; ten small children would have been almost
irresistible in themselves, without the twins, but the touching parenthesis
about that interesting production of nature, and the still more touching
allusion to Mrs. Spruggins, must ensure success. Spruggins was the favorite at once, and the appearance of his lady, as she went about to solicit
votes (which encouraged confident hopes of a still further addition to the
house of Spruggins at no remote period), increased the general prepossession in his favor. The other candidates, Bung alone excepted, resigned
in despair. The day of election was fixed: and the canvass proceeded
with briskness and perseverance on both sides.
The members of the vestry could not be supposed to escape the con



74           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
tagious excitement inseparable from the occasion. The majority of the
lady inhabitants of the parish declared at once for Spruggins; and the
quondam overseer took the same side, on the ground that men with large
families always had been elected to the office, and that although he must
admit, that, in other respects, Spruggins was the least-qualified candidate
of the two, still it was an old practice, and he saw no reason why an old
practice should be departed from. This was enough for the captain. He
immediately sided with Bung, canvassed for him personally in all directions, wrote squibs on Spruggins, and got his butcher to skewer them up
on conspicuous joints in his shop-front; frightened his neighbor, the old
lady, into a palpitation of the heart, by his awful denunciations of Spruggins's party; and bounced in and out, and up and down, and backwards
and forwards, until all the sober inhabitants of the parish thought it
inevitable that he must die of a brain fever, long before the election
began.
The day of election arrived. It was no longer an individual struggle,
but a party contest between the ins and outs. The question was, whether
the withering influence of the overseers, the domination of the churchwardens, and the blighting despotism of the vestry-clerk, should be
allowed to render the election of beadle a form- a nullity: whether they
should impose a vestry-elected beadle on the parish, to do their bidding
and forward their views, or whether the parishioners, fearlessly asserting their undoubted rights, should elect an independent beadle of their
own.
The nomination was fixed to take place in the vestry, but so great was
the throng of anxious spectators, that it was found necessary to adjourn
to the church, where the ceremony commenced with due solemnity. The
appearance of the churchwardens and overseers, and the ex-churchwardens, and ex-overseers, with Spruggins in the rear, excited general attention. Spruggins was a little thin man, in rusty black, with a long pale
face, and a countenance expressive of care and fatigue, which might
either be attributed to the extent of the family' or the anxiety of his feelings. His opponent appeared in a cast-off coat of the captain's - a blue
coat with bright buttons: white trousers, and that description of shoes
familiarly known by the appellation of "high-lows." There was a serenity
in the open countenance of Bungr- a kind of moral dignity in his confident air — an " I wish you may get it," sort of expression in his eye -
which infused animation into his supporters, and evidently dispirited his
opponents.
The ex-churchwarden rose to propose Thomas Spruggins for beadle.
He had known him long. IIe had had his eye upon him closely for
years; he had watched him with twofold vigilance for months. (A parishioner here suggested that this might be termed "taking a double
sight," but the observation was drowned in loud cries of " Order I ") He
would repeat that he had had his eye upon him for years, and this he
would say, that a more well-conducted, a more well-behaved, a more sober,




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                    75
a more quiet man, with a more well-regulated mind, he had never met
with. A man with a larger family he had never known (cheers). The
parish required a man who could be depended on ("Hear!" from the
Spruggins side, answered by ironical cheers from the Bung party). Such
a man he now proposed (" No," " Yes "). He would not allude to individuals (the ex-churchwarden continued in the celebrated negative style
adopted by great speakers). He would not advert to a gentleman who
had once held a high rank in the service of his majesty; he would not say,
that that gentleman was no gentleman; he would not assert, that that
man was no man; he would not say, that he was a turbulent parishioner;
he would not say, that he had grossly misbehaved himself, not only on
this, but on all former occasions; he would not say, that he was one of
those discontented and treasonable spirits, who carried confusion and disorder wherever they went; he would not say, that he harbored in his heart
envy, and hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. No! He wished
to have everything comfortable and pleasant, and therefore, he would say,
-nothing about him (cheers).
The captain replied in a similar parliamentary style. He would not
say, he was astonished at the speech they had just heard; he would not
say, he was disgusted (cheers). He would not retort the epithets which
had been hurled against him (renewed cheering): he would not allude to
men once in office, but now happily out of it, who had mismanaged the
workhouse, ground the paupers, diluted the beer, slack-baked the bread,
boned the meat, heightened the work, and lowered the soup (tremendous
cheers). He would not ask what such men deserved (a voice, "Nothing aday, and find themselves! "). He would not say, that one burst of general
indignation should drive them from the parish they polluted with their
presence (" Give it him! "). He would not allude to the unfortunate man
who had been proposed — he would not say, as the vestry's tool, but as
Beadle. He would not advert to that individual's family: he would not
say, that nine children, twins, and a wife, were very bad examples for
pauper imitation (loud cheers). He would not advert in detail to the
qualifications of Bung. The man stood before him, and he would not
say in his presence, what he might be disposed to say of him if he were
absent. (Here Mr. Bung telegraphed to a friend near him, under cover
of his hat, by contracting his left eye, and applying his right thumb to
the tip of his nose). It had been objected to Bung that he had only five
children (" Hear, hear! " from the opposition). Well, he had yet to learn
that the legislature had affixed any precise amount of infantine qualification to the office of beadle; but taking it for granted that an extensive
family were a great requisite, he entreated them to look to facts, and compare data, about which there could be no mistake. Bung was 35 years of
age. Spruggins - of whom he wished to speak with all possible respect
was 50. Was it not more than possible - was it not very probable - that
by the time that Bung attained the latter age, he might see round him a
family, even exceeding in number and extent that to which Spruggins at




7 6          THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
present laid claim (deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs)? The
captain concluded, amidst loud applause, by calling upon the parishioners
to sound the tocsin, rush to the poll, free themselves from dictation, or be
slaves forever.
On the following day the polling began, and we never have had such
a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition,
which was such an important one, that the House of Commons ordered it
to be printed, on the motion of the member for the district. The captain
engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung's people,- the cab for
the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater
portion of whom, owing to the captain's impetuosity, were driven up to the
poll and home again, before they recovered from their flurry sufficiently,
to know with any degree of clearness what they had been doing. The
opposite party wholly neglected these precautions, and the consequence was
that a great many ladies who were walking leisurely up to the church —
for it was a very hot day, -to vote for Spruggins, were artfully decoyed
into the coaches, and voted for Bung. The captain's arguments, too, had
produced considerable effect; the attempted influence of the vestry produced a greater. A threat of exclusive dealing was clearly established
against the vestry-clerk — a case of heartless -and profligate atrocity. It
appeared that the delinquent had been in the habit of purchasing six
penn'orth of muffins, weekly, from an old woman who rents a small house
in the parish, and resides among the original settlers: on her last weekly
visit, a message was conveyed to her through the medium of the cook,
couched in mysterious terms, but indicating with sufficient clearness, that
the vestry-clerk's appetite for muffins, in future, depended entirely on her
vote on the beadleship. This was sufficient; the stream had been turning
previously, and the impulse thus administered directed its final course.
The Bung party ordered one shilling's-worth of muffins weekly for the remainder of the old woman's natural life; the parishoners were loud in
their exclamations; and the fate of Spruggins was sealed.
It was in vain that the twins were exhibited in dresses of the same
pattern, and night-caps to match, at the- church door: the boy in IMrs.
Spruggins's right arm, and the girl in her left - even Mrs. Spruggins herself failed to be an object of sympathy any longer. The majority attained by Bung on the gross poll was four hundred and twenty-eight, and
the cause of the parishioners triumphed.




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                      77
MISS EVANS AND "THE EAGLE."-SKETCHES BY Boz.
Mr. Samuel Wilkins was a carpenter, a journeyman carpenter of small
dimensions, decidedly below the middle size —bordering, perhaps, upon
the dwarfish. His face was round and shining, and his hair carefully
twisted into the outer corner of each eye, till it formed a variety of that
description of semi-curls, usually known as "aggerawators."  His earnings were all-sufficient for his wants, varying from eighteen shillings to
one pound five, weekly, —his manner undeniable —his sabbath waistcoats dazzling. No wonder that with these qualifications, Samuel Wilkins
found favor in the eyes of the other sex:-many women have been captivated
by far less substantial qualifications. But Samuel was proof against their
blandishments until at length his eyes rested on those of a Being for
whom, from that time forth, he felt fate had destined him. He came, and
conquered - proposed, and was accepted - loved, and was beloved. Mr.
Wilkins " kept company" with Jemima Evans.
Miss Evans (or Ivins to adopt the pronunciation most in vogue with
her circle of acquaintance) had adopted in early life the useful pursuit of
shoe-binding, to which she had afterwards superadded the occupation of
a straw-bonnet maker.  Herself, her maternal parent, and two sisters,
formed an harmonious quartet in the most secluded portion of Camden
Town; and here it was that Mr. Wilkins presented himself, one Monday
afternoon, in his best attire, with his face more shining and his waistcoat
more bright than either had ever appeared before. The family were just
going to tea, and were so glad to see him. It was quite a little feast; two
ounces of seven-and-sixpenny green, and a quarter of a pound of the best
fresh; and Mr. Wilkins had brought a pint of shrimps, neatly folded up
in a clean belcher, to give a zest to the meal, and propitiate Mrs. Ivins.
Jemima was "cleaning herself" up-stairs; so Mr. Samuel Wilkins sat
down and talked domestic economy with Mrs. Ivins, whilst the two youngest Miss Ivinses poked bits of lighted brown paper between the bars
under the kettle to anake the water boil for tea.
"I wos a thinking," said Mr. Samuel Wilkins, during a pause in the
conversation -  I wos a thinking of taking J'mima to the Eagle to-night."
-" Oh my! " exclaimed Mrs. Ivins. " Lor!  how nice 1 " said the youngest
Miss Ivins. "Well, I declare I " added the youngest Miss Ivins but one.
" Tell J'mima to put on her white muslin, Tilly." screamed Mrs. Ivins,
with motherly anxiety; and down came J'mima herself soon afterwards
in a white muslin gown carefully hooked and eyed, a little red shawl,
plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, a
small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin shoes, and openworked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambric
pocket;handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand - all quite genteel
and ladylike. And away went Miss Jemima Ivins and Mr. Samuel Wilkins,
and a dress cane with a gilt knob at the top, to the admiration and envy




78           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
of the street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and
the two youngest Miss Ivinses in particular. They had no sooner turned
into the Pancras road, than who should Miss J'mima Ivins stumble upon,
by the most fortunate accident in the world, but a young lady as she knew,
with her young man! - And it is so strange how things do turn out sometimes —they were actually going to the Eagle too.  So Mr. Samuel
Wilkins was introduced to Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man, and
they all walked on together, talking, and laughing, and joking away'like
anything; and when they got as far as Pentonville, Miss Ivins's friend's
young man would have the ladies go into the Crown, to taste some shrub,
which, after a great blushing and giggling, and hiding of faces in elaborate pocket-handkerchiefs, they consented to do. Having tasted it once,
they were easily prevailed upon to taste it again; and they sat out in the
garden tasting shrub, and looking at the Busses alternately, till it was
just the proper time to go to the Eagle: and then they resumed their
journey, and walked very fast, for fear they should lose the beginning of
the concert in the Rotunda.
"How ev'nly!" said Miss Jemiina Ivins, and Miss Jemima Ivins's
friend, both at once, when they had passed the gate and were fairly inside
the gardens. There were the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted —
and the refreshment-boxes, painted and ornamented like so many snuffboxes —and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the
company's heads -and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company's feet — and a Moorish band playing at one end of the gardens —
and an opposition military band playing away at the other. Then, the
waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of
brandy-and-water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and gi.ngerbeer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going on in another; and people were crowding to the door of the Rotunda; and in'short the whole scene was, as Miss J'mima Ivins, inspired by the novelty,
or the shrub, or both, observed -" one of dazzling excitement."  As to
the concert-room, never was anything half so splendid. There was an
orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and such an
organ! Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost
"four hundred pound," which Mr. Samuel Wilkins said was " not dear
neither;" an opinion in which the ladies perfectly coincided. The audience were seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into
every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably
as possible. Just before the concert commenced, lir. Samuel W~ilkins
ordered two glasses of run-and-water " warm with "- and two slices of
lemon, for himself and the other young man, together with "a pint o'
sherry wine for the ladies, and some sweet caraway-seed biscuits;" and
they would have been quite comfortable and happy, only a strange gentleman with large whiskers would stare at Miss J'mima Ivins, and another
gentleman, in a plaid waistcoat would wink at Miss J'mima Ivins's friend;
on which Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man exhibited symptoms of




A DAY WITH CHARLES DICKENS.                    79
boiling over, and began to mutter about "people's imperence,' and " swells
out o' luck; " and to intimate, in oblique terms, a vague intention of
knocking somebody's head off; which he was only prevented from announcing more emphatically, by both Miss J'mima Ivins and her friend
threatening to faint away on the spot if he said another word.
The concert commenced- overture on the organ. "How solemn I"
exclaimed Miss J'mima Ivins, glancing, perhaps unconsciously, at the
gentleman with the whiskers. Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with the gilt knob of the dress cane, breathed hard -breathing
vengeance, perhaps, - but said nothing. " The soldier tired," 1liss Somebody in white satin.  "Ancore!" cried Miss J'mima Ivins's friend.
" Ancore! " shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately,
hammering the table with a stout-bottle. Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's
young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and
cast a look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins.
Comic song, accompanied on the organ. Miss J'mima Ivins was convulsed with laughter -so was the man with the whiskers. Everything
the ladies did, the plaid waistcoat and whiskers did, by way of expressing
unity of sentiment and congeniality of soul; and Miss J'mima Ivins, and
Miss J'mima Ivins's friend, grew lively and talkative, as Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's friend's young man, grew morose and surly
in inverse proportion.
Now, if the matter had ended here, the little party might soon have
recovered their former equanimity; but Mr. Samuel Wilkins and his
friend began to throw looks of defiance upon the waistcoat and whiskers.
And the waistcoat and whiskers, by way of intimating the slight degree
in which they were affected by the looks aforesaid, bestowed glances of
increased admiration upon Miss J'mima Ivins and friend. The concert
and vaudeville concluded, they promenaded the gardens. The waistcoat
and whiskers did the same; and made divers remarks complimentary to
the ankles of Miss J'mima Ivins and friend, in an audible tone. At
length, not satisfied with these numerous atrocities, they actually came up
and asked Miss J'mima Ivins, and Miss J'mima Ivins's friend to dance,
without taking no more notice of Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and Miss J'mima
Ivins's friend's young man, than if they was nobody!
"What do you mean by that, scoundrel?" exclaimed Mr. Samuel
Wilkins, grasping the gilt-knobbed dress cane firmly in his right hand.
"What's the matter with you, you little humbug? " replied the whiskers.
" How dare you insult me and my friend? " inquired the friend's young
man. "You and your friend be hanged!" responded the waistcoat.
"Take that," exclaimed Mr. Samuel Wilkins. The ferrule of the giltknobbed dress cane was visible for an instant, and then the light of the
-variegated lamps shone brightly upon it as it whirled into the air, cane and
all. " Give it him," said the waistcoat. " Horficer 1I" screamed the ladies.




SO           THE BEST OF ALL GOOD COMPANY.
Miss J'mima Ivins's beau, and the friend's young man, lay gasping on
the gravel, and the waistcoat and whiskers were seen no more.
Miss J'mima Ivins and friend being conscious that the affray was in
no slight degree attributable to themselves, of course went into hysterics
forthwith; declared themselves the most injured of women; exclaimed, in
incoherent ravings, that they had been suspected —wrongfully suspected
- oh! that they should ever have lived to see the day, - and so forth;
suffered a relapse every time they opened their eyes and saw their unfortunate little admirers; and were carried to their respective abodes in
a hackney-coach, and a state of insensibility, compounded of shrub, sherry,
and excitement.
Stereotyped by C. 7. PETERS  P SON, Boston, Mass.








THE NEW PACIFIC GUIDE-BOOK.
The Atlantic to the Pacific:
WHAT TO SEE, AND HOW TO SEE IT.
BY JOHN ERASTUS LESTER.
THIS volume, small enough to be carried in the pocket or satchel,
is, as its title indicates, a complete guide from the Atlantic to
the Pacific Coast.
Its author, Mr. LESTER, was not hurried through the trip, as many
of his readers must be, but, with a Pullman car at his disposal, journeyed leisurely through the country, taking ample time to examine the
objects of interest, and to test hotels and railroads,, stage-routes,
guides, &c., &c.  TraVelling at his own expense, he had no one to
propitiate, no corporation to subserve; and is, therefore, thoroughly
independent, fearing not to criticise man, railroad, hotel, or place of
interest. He is therefore reliable, and is always entertaining.
His trip embraced Colorado, where he travelled in company with
T. E. SICKELS, Esq., Supt. of Union Pacific R.R., over the proposed
lines of the Colorado Central, the Julesburg, and other roads, which
the Union are building as feeders for their main line; and thus Mr.
LESTER was enabled to gain an extensive knowledge of this territory.
The book contains full and accurate information as to journeys to
the main points of interest in California, -such as the Yo Semite, the
Geysers, the great valleys, the Sierras, the cities and towns, the bay,
the lakes and the rivers, and the famous quicksilver mines called the
New Almaden; also to Salt Lake City and Utah Territory; to Virginia City and the great silver mines of Nevada; to the Rocky Mountains, the springs and cities of Colorado, and many other places which
may be embraced in an extended tour " Across the Continent."
The information conveyed may be divided as follows; viz., -
I. What railroads to avoid, and what to patronize.
2. Information in regard to stage-routes, guides, mule-trains, &c.
3. What hotels to put up at.
4. What objects of interest to see, and what are unworthy of notice.
5. Information in regard to various trips, the time taken for them,
and the season in which to make them.
7. A table of itemized expenses of the several excursions.
The descriptions are given in the form of narrative, and the book
is supplied with a copious Index.
The Guide is indorsed by Mr. T. E. SICKELS, the Supt. of the Union
Pacific R.R., and has the advantage of handiness and cheapness.
Price, bound in paper, 81.00; cloth, limp, 81.50.
SHEPARD & GILL, Publishers, Boston.