Charles Dickens. The story of his life

Front matter

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Appendix

ANECDOTES AND REMINISCENCES.

The First Hint of " Pickwick " Page 103

Dickens and the " Morning Chronicle " 10.3

Portraits of Dickens i04

The Names of Dickens's Characters 105

Description of " Boz " in 1844 1U5

Description of Dickens in 1852 105

Boz's Table Habits 105

The MS. of " Oliver Twist " 106

Dickens's Benevolence 106

Hook and Dickens 106

Methodical Habits and Perseverance 106

Manner of Literary Composition 106

" The Chief" 107

Blue Ink 107

Dickens in Private Life 107

Sympathy with Working-men 107

A Beggar's Estimate of his Generosity 107

Paragraph Disease 107

Dickens and Thackeray 107

Anecdote of Abraham Lincoln 108

The Contributors to "Household Words". 108

" The Mystery of Edwin Drood " 109

Gad's Hill House 109

I

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

EOOHESTER CASTLE, AS SEEN FROM THE RAILWAY BRIDGE.

Chapter I. Early C Are Er

THE " Story of the Life " of England's greatest novelist requires but little introduction. Of his ancestors but few particulars are recorded, and these are entirely witho'^t interest as having any connection with the late illustrious bearer of the name.

Charles Dickens* was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on the 7th Pebruary, 1812, his father, Mr. John Dickens, being a clerk in the Navy Pay 0£Sce at that sea-port. His duties required that he should reside from time to time in different naval stations — now at Plymouth, now at Portsmouth, and then at Sheerness and Chatham. "In the glorious days " of war with Prance those towns were full of life, bustle, and

* He Avas christened Charles Jb7i?iJ3ottf77iam Dickens, but the full name (taken partly from the father and partly from his mother's side) was too high-sounding for his simple tastes, and so he never used it, preferring the plainer form. He once remarked that, had he been a fashionable doctor, he might have thought differently about the matter.

character, and the father of the author of " Pickwick " was at times fond of dilating upon the strange scenes he had witnessed. One of the stories described a sitting-room he once enjoyed at Blue Town, Sheerness, abutting on the theatre. Of an evening he used to sit in his room and could hear what was passing on the stage, and join in the chorus of "God save the King" and "Britannia Rules the Waves" — then the favorite song of Englishmen.

On the termination of the war in 1815, a large reduction was made in the number of clerks in this office, and Mr. Dickens receiving his pension, removed to London with his wife and seven children. Possessing considerable abilities, and unwilling to remain idle, he became parliamentary reporter on the "Morning Chronicle."*

Charles remained at home until he was seven years of age, and was then sent to a private school at Chatham, the late Rev. Wm. Giles, P. R. A. S., being his instructor. As an evidence of young Dickens's kindly disposition, it may be mentioned that, some years ago, when such fame as he had acquired would cause most men to have forgotten their former old associations, Dickens joined some other old scholars in the presentation of a service of plate to Mr. Giles, accompanied by a most gratifying testimonial of regard, to which he attached his well-known bold autograph. A fellow-scholar, who was at school at the same time with Dickens (there being only two years difference in their ages), used often to speak of the marked geniality of Dickens's character as a boy, and of his proficiency in all boyish sports, such as cricket, etc. Ultimately he completed his education at a good school in or near London. At an early age he commenced to read the

* The old gentleman died in Keppel Street, Russell Square, on 31st March, 1S51, aged 65.

LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.

standard works of the best authors. In the preface to "Nicholas Nickleby," speaking of how he first heard of the cruelties of the Yorkshire schools, he describes himself as being "a not very robust child, sitting in by-places, near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza." In "David Copperfield " (a book one can hardly help fancying is in some respects autobiographical), he says (omitting a few words) : " From that blessed little room Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphry Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy — they, and the 'Arabian Nights,' and the 'Tales* of the Genii,' — and did me no harm ; for whatever harm there was in some of them, was not there for me ; / knew nothing of it. * * * I have seen Tom Jones (a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travels, and for days and days I can remember to have gone about my region of our house armed with a centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees — the perfect realization of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. The Captain never lost dignity from having his ears boxed with the Latin Grammar. I did ; but the Captain was a captain and a hero, in despite of all the grammars of all the languages in the world, dead or alive."

His career at school having concluded, his father was desirous tliat he should be articled to the law, 'and he entered a solicitor's office for that purpose. Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton) once said : " The study of the law is generally ridiculed as dry and uninteresting; but a mind anxious for the discovery of truth and information will be amply gratified for the toil of investigating the origin and progress of jurisprudence which has the good of the people for its basis, and the accumulated wisdom of ages for its improvement." But to young Dickens it was ill calculated to accord with the literary tastes he had formed, and thus imbued with the kindred feelings of some of his distinguished contemporaries — Disraeli, Layard, Harrison Ainsworth, and Westland Marston, all of whom passed a portion of their early days at an attorney's desk — he became disgusted with the tedious routine of the profession, and, resigning all ideas of propitiating Thetis (the goddess of lawyers), determined to become a reporter, like his father, who, finding how strong his son's ideas were on the subject, wisely placed no obstacle in his path, but removed him from his uncongenial employment, and placed him with the Messrs. Gurney, the parliamentary short-hand writers of Abingdon Street, Westminster. It is said that during his probation, and while practising short-hand writing, Dickens passed the leisure hours of some two years in the Library of the British Museum.

The manner in which the difficulties of stenography were overcome had best be told in his own words: "I did not allow my resolution with respect to the parliamentary debates to cool. It was one of the irons I began to heat immediately, and one of the irons I kept hot and hammered at with a perseverance I may honestly admire. I bought an approved scheme of the noble art and mystery of stenography (which cost me ten-and-sixpence),* and plunged into a sea of perplexity, that brought me in a few weeks to, the confines of distraction. The changes that were rung upon dots, which in one position meant such a thing, and in another position something else entirely different ; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles ; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like fly's legs ; the tremendous effects from a curve in the wrong place ; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. When I had groped my way blindly through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, which was an Egyptian temple in itself, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters — the most despotic characters I had ever known ; who insisted, for instance, that the thing like the beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found that they had driven every thing else out of it; then, beginning again, I forgot them ; while I was picking them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system ; in short, it was almost heart-breaking."

Occupying the Chair at the second Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, on 20th May, 1865, and referring to his early reporting days, he said :

" 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 ; and I have pursued the calling of a

* This was "Gurney's System of Short-hand," the IGth edition of which is now selling at the old price, 10s. 6c?.

LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS.

reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in England here — many of my brethren's successors — can form no adequate conception. I have often transcribed for the printer from my short-hand notes important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand by the light of a dark lantern in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter I strolled into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once ' took,' as we used to call it, an election speech of my noble friend Lord Russell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such pelting rain, that I remember two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery 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 like so many sheep kept in waiting till the wool-sack might want restufiing. 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 by-roads towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from London, in a rickety carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time before publication, to be received with neverforgotten compliments by Mr. Black, in the broadest of Scotch, coming from the broadest of hearts I ever knew. I mention these trivial things as an assui'ance to you that I never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. The pleasure that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I took to it or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully believe I could resume it to-morrow. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech — the phenomenon does occur — I sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, old way ; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I even find my hand going on the table-cloth. Accept these little truths as a confirmation of what I know, as a confirmation of my interest in this old calling. I verily believe, I am sure, that if I had never quitted my old calling, I should have been foremost and zealous in the interest of this institution, believing it to be a sound, a wholesome, and a good one."

"That there was no exaggeration in this statement," writes a personal friend,* "he proved, in the course of that very year, by giving a series of lessons in short-hand to a young man, a connection of his, when his fluency and perspicuity were found to be as great as ever." To the same writer he once told a curious anecdote of his reporting days : " The late Earl of Derby, then Lord Stanley, had on some important occasion made a grand speech in the House of Commons. This speech, of immense length, it was found necessary to compress, but so admirably had its pith and marrow been given in the 'Morning Chronicle,' that Lord Stanley sent to the ofiice, requesting that the gentleman who had reported it would wait upon him at his residence in Carlton House Terrace, that he might then and there take down the speech in its entirety from his lordship's lips. Lord Stanley being desirous of having a perfect transcript of it. The reporter was Charles Dickens. He attended, took down the speech, and received Lord Stanley's compliments on his work. Many years after, Mr. Dickens, dining for the first time with a friend in Carlton House Terrace, found the aspect of the dining-room strangely familiar to him, and, on making inquiries, discovered that the house had previously belonged to Lord Derby, and that that was the very room in which he had taken down Lord Stanley's speech." It is understood that our author practised reporting in th,e law Courts before going to the Houses of Parliament.

The first paper he obtained an engagement on was " The True Sun," with the managers of which he soon became noted for the succinctness of his reports, and the judicious, though somewhat ruthless, style with which he cut down unnecessary verbiage, displaying the substance to the best advantage, and exemplifying the well-known maxim of Perry, the famous chief of the "Morning Chronicle," that " Speeches can not be made long enough for the speakers, nor short enough for the 7-eaders."

Remaining for a brief period on the staff" of "The True Sun," he seceded to the "Mirror of Parliament," which had started with the express object of reporting the debates verbatim. Mr. Barrow, Dickens's uncle, was the conductor ; its downfall, however, was rapid, as it only existed two sessions.

* In the " Observer," l'2th June, ISTO.

LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.

Through his father's influence he was next I secured an appointment on the "Morning Chronicle," a newspaper originally established on Whig principles, by Woodfall, in 1769. By a remarkable coincidence, three of its chief parliamentary reporters afterwards attained to eminent positions. The late Lord Chancellor Campbell commenced his career on its staff; on his resignation William Hazlitt (the celebrated essayist) supplied his place, who was in turn succeeded by Mr. Charles Dickens.

While Dickens was reporting for the " Morning Chronicle," it fell in the way of his duty to go down into Devonshire, where Lord John Russell — who had accepted the post of Secretary of State in the new Melbourne cabinet — was seeking re-election (May, 1835) from his old constituency. As his lordship had been instrumental in getting Peel and the tories out of office, his constituents resented the act by returning another member in his place. It is to this noisy election that Dickens alludes in the extract from his speech on "reporting" given above. In those days of coaching and slow letter-post, Dickens had to keep his editor fully informed of the best and quickest transit for his "reports ;" and, by the kindness of the then sub-editor, who received Dickens's letters, and, believing in the man as heartily as the great John Black did, has carefully preserved them to the present time, I am enabled to give an extract from the identical letter received from him when on this journey. He writes from the Bush Inn at Bristol, a famous hostelry for commercial travellers, and a noted "coaching" house for persons bound to the West of England. The letter was dated Tuesday morning :

" The conclusion of Russell's dinner will be forwarded by Cooper's, company's coach, which leaves here at half past six to-morrow morning. The report of the Bath dinner shall be forwarded by the first Bath coach on Thursday morning — what time it starts we have no means of ascertaining till we reach Bath ; but you will receive it as early as possible, as we Avill indorse the parcel ' Pay the porter 2s. 6c/. extra for immediate delivery.' Beard will go over to Bath from here to-morrow morning, and I shall come back by the mail from Marlborough. I need not say that it will be sharp work, and will require two of us ; for we shall both be up the whole of the previous night, and shall have to sit up all night again to get it off in time.

" As soon as we have had a little sleep, we shall return to town as quickly as we can, for we have (if the express succeeds) to stop at two or three places along the road, to pay money and

I express satisfaction. You may imagine that we are extremely anxious to know the result of the arrangement. Pray direct to one of us at the ' White Hart,' Bath, and inform us in a parcel sent by the first coach after you receive this, exactly at what hour it arrived. Do not fail on any account.

" We joined with the ' Herald ' (I say this in reference to the first part of your letter) precisely on the principle you at first laid down — economy ; not pushed so far, however, as to interfere with the eflSciency of the express. As the conclusion of the dinner was to be done, we all thought the best plan we could pursue would be to leave two men behind, and trust Russell to the others. I have no doubt, if he makes a speech of any ordinary dimensions, it can be done by the time we reach Marlborough ; and taking into consideration the immense importance of having the addition of saddle-horses from thence, it is beyond all doubt worth an effort. Believe me (for self and Beard), " Very sincerely yours,

" Charles Dickens.

" *^* I thought of putting the accompanying letter to my brother in the post. Will you have the kindness to send a boy with it ?" 1

This is, in all likelihood, the only letter of Dickens's reporting days now in existence. As a record of his industry and business foresight it is most interesting, and the glimpses that it gives of the wild life led by a reporter in those days, show us the source of that wonderful knowledge of those old coaching days and that old tavern life that have passed out of actual existence, to live forever in Dickens's pages. We may just say that it is Mr. Thomas Beard, one of the first reporters in England, and Dickens's dear friend, who is alluded to in the letter ; the Mr. Frank Beard, who attended the great novelist in his last moments, is, we believe, a brother of this gentleman.

Concerning Dickens's earliest printed writings, Mr. James Grant, the well-known journalist and author, has supplied us with an account which differs much from what has been elsewhere said upon this part of our author's career. "It is everywhere stated," says Mr. Grant, "that the earliest productions from his pen made their appearance in the columns of the ' Morning Chronicle,' and that Mr. John Black, then editor of that journal, was the first to discover and duly to appreciate the genius of Mr. Dickens. The fact was not so. It is true that he wnrote ' Sketches ' afterwards in the ' Morn ing Chronicle,' but he did not begin them in that journal. Mr. Dickens first became con-

LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS.

nected with the ' Morning Chronicle ' as a reporter in the gallery of the House of Commons. This was in 1835-36 ; but Mr. Dickens had been previously engaged, while in his nineteenth year, as a reporter for a publication entitled the ' Mirror of Parliament,' in which capacity he occupied the very highest rank among the eighty or ninety reporters for the press then in Parliament. While in the gallery of the House of Commons, he was exceedingly reserved in his manners. Though interchanging the usual courtesies of life with all with whom he came into contact in the discharge of his professional duties, the only gentleman at that time in the gallery of the House of Commons with whom he formed a close personal intimacy was Mr. Thomas Beard, then a reporter for the * Morning Herald, ' and now connected with the newspaper press generally, as furnishing the court intelligence in the morning journals. The friendship thus formed between Mr. Dickens and Mr. Beard so far back as the year 1832 was, I believe, continued till the death of Mr, Dickens.

"It was about the year 1833-34, before Mr. Dickens's connection with the ' Morning Chronicle,' and before Mr. Black, then editor of that journal, had ever met with him, that he commenced his literary career as an amateur writer. He made his debut in the latter end of 1834 or beginning of 1835, in the * Old Monthly Magazine,' then conducted by Captain Holland, an intimate friend of mine. The ' Old Monthly Magazine ' had been started more than a quarter of a century before by Sir Kichard Philips, and was for many years a periodical of large circulation and high literary reputation — a fact which might be inferred from another fact, namely, that the 'New Monthly Magazine,' started by Mr. Colburn, under the editorial auspices of Mr. Thomas Campbell, author of 'The Pleasures of Hope,' appropriated the larger portion of its title. The ' Old Monthly Magazine ' was published at half a crown, being the same price as 'Blackwood,' 'Fraser,' and *Bentley's ' magazines are at the present day.

" It was, as I have said, in this monthly periodical — not in the columns of the ' Morning Chronicle ' — that Mr. Dickens first appeared in the realms of literature. He sent, in the first instance, his contributions to that periodical anonymously. These consisted of sketches, chiefly of a humorous character, and were simply signed 'Boz,' For a long time they did not attract any special attention, but were generally spoken of in newspaper notices of the magazine as 'clever,' 'graphic,' and so forth,

♦' Early in ] 836 the editorship of the ' Monthly Magazine ' — the adjective ' Old' having been by this time dropped — came into my hands; and in making the necessary arrangements for its transfer from Captain Holland — then, I should have mentioned, proprietor as well as editor — I expressed my great admiration of the series of ' Sketches by Boz,' which had appeared in the ^Monthly,' and said I should like to make an arrangement with the writer for a continuance of them under my editorship. With that view I asked him the name of the author. It will sound strange in most ears when I state, that a name which has for so many years filled the whole civilized world v/ith its fame was not remembered by Captain Holland, But he added, after expressing his regret that he could not at the moment recollect the real name of 'Boz,' that he had received a letter from him a few days previously, and that if I would meet him at the same time and place next day, he would bring me that letter, because it related to the ' Sketches ' of the writer in the ' Monthly Magazine.' As Captain Holland knew I was at the time a parliamentary reporter on the ' Morning Chronicle,' then a journal of high literary reputation, and of great political influence, he supplemented his remark by saying that ' Boz ' was a parliamentary reporter ; on which I observed that I must, in that case, know him, at least by sight, as I was acquainted, in that respect, more or less, with all the reporters in the gallery of the House of Commons.

" Captain Holland and I met, according to appointment, on the following day, when he brought me the letter to which he had referred. I then found that the name of the author of ' Sketches by Boz ' was Charles Dickens. The letter was written in the most moderate terms. It was simply to the effect that as he (Mr. Dickens) had hitherto given all his contributions — those signed ' Boz ' — gratuitously, he would be glad if Captain Holland thought his ' Sketches ' to be worthy of any small remuneration, as otherwise he would be obliged to discontinue them, because he was going very soon to get married, and therefore would be subjected to more expenses than he was while living alone, which he was during the time, in Furnival's Inn,

"It was not quite clear from Mr. Dickens's letter to Captain Holland, whether he meant he would be glad to receive any small consideration for the series of ' Sketches,' about a dozen in number, which he had furnished to the ' Monthly Magazine ' without making any charge, or whether he only expected to be paid for those he might afterwards send. Neither do I know whether Captain Holland furnished him with any pecuniary expression of his admiration of

LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.

THE UOUbE IN FDENIVAL'8 INN (1833-36).

[Our Author's earliest London home, after leaving his father's house. Here he had chambers when a reporter, and some time before he received any appointment as a writer for the press. Here the "Sketches by Boz" were written, and the largest portion of his best-known work, the inimitable " Pickwick Papers."]

eight guineas per sheet, which was at the rate of half a guinea per page.

"I wrote to him in reply, that the £- price was not too much, but that I could not get the proprietor to give the amount, because when the ' Monthly Magazine ' came into his hands it was not in the same flourishing state as it once had been. I was myself, at this time, getting ten guineas a sheet from Captain Marryat for writing for his ' Metropolitan Magazine,' which was started by Thomas Campbell and Tom Moore, in opposition to the ' New Monthly Magazine,' and at the rate of tw^enty guineas per sheet for my contributions to the * Penny Cyclopedia.'

" Only imagine,"concludes Mr. Grant, with pardonable fervor, "Mr. Dickens offering to furnish me with a continuation, for any length of time which I might have named, of his ' Sketches by Boz ' for eight guineas a sheet, whereas in little more than six months from that date he could — so great in the interval had his popularity become — have got 100 guineas per sheet of sixteen pages from any of the leading periodicals of the day !"*

Dr. Charles Mackay writes to us : "John Black, of the 'Morning Chron- * the ' Sketches by Boz ' which had appeared in the ' Monthly.' But immediately on receiving Mr. Dickens's letter, I wrote to him, saying that the editorship of the ' Monthly Magazine ' had come into my hands, and that, greatly admiring his ' Sketches' under the signature of 'Boz,' I should be glad if we could come to any arrangement for a continuance of them. I concluded my note by expressing a hope that he would, at his earliest convenience, let me know on what terms per sheet he would be willing to furnish me with similar sketches every month for an indefinite period.

"By return of post I received a letter from Mr. Dickens, to the effect that he had just entered into an arrangement Avith Messrs. Chapman & Hall to write a monthly serial. He did not name the work, but I found in a few weeks it was none other than the ' Pickwick Papers.' He added, that as this serial would occupy much of his spare time from his duties as a reporter, he could not undertake to furnish me with the proposed sketches for less than icle,' was always keen to discover young genius, and to help it onward in the struggle of life. He very early discovered the talents of Dickens — not only as a reporter, but as a writer." Dr. Mackay was sub-editor of the ' Morning Chronicle ' when Dickens was a reporter. He continues: "I have often heard Black speak of him, and predict his future fame. When Dickens had become famous, Black exerted all his influence with Sir John Easthope, principal proprietor of the ' Chronicle,' to have Dickens engaged as a writer of leading articles. He (Black) had his wish, and Dickens wrote several articles ; but he did not seem to take kindly to such work, and did not long continue at it."