Life of Charles Dickens

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Dedication

TO HON. JOHN W. FORNEY.

My Dear Forney, "7 "^

I beg leave to dedicate to you, wisTiing that it were worthier of your acceptance, this biographical sketch of Charles Dickens, knowing, during all the years of my relations with you, how warmly you have admired the genius of the great and good man whose loss the world mourns. In the fulness of his fame, Dickens has departed. Of late years, there have been several of these public misfortunes. Macaulay and Thackeray soon followed Hood and Jerrold ; John Leech left us in his prime, and still later, two more of Dickens's friends — Maclise, the great painter, and Mark Lemon, Editor of Punch — were smitten by the inevitable shaft. These men died not much beyond middle age ; but nearly all of them were suddenly stricken. Charles Dickens, in his fifty-ninth year, has followed, and the shock is great ; for of him, it might be said, as of

Chapter I

LESSON OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. — CHARACTER OF HIS GENIUS. — ANCESTRY. — JOHN DICKENS, THE GOVERNMENT CLERK. — HIS FAMILY. — REMOVAL TO LONDON. — NEWSPAPER REPORTER. — MICAWBER AND

MRS. NICKLEBY. — CHARLES DICKENS's EDUCATION.

TRUTH IN FICTION. — ROCHESTER VISITED BY THE PICKWICKIANS. — WATTS'S HOSPITAL. — CLOISTER- HAM. — gad's hill. 29

»^CHAPTER II.

ENGLISH LAWYERS. — ARTICLED CLERKS. — SHORT-HAND WRITING. — -jyyiKENS AS A REPORTER. — MIRROR OF PARLIAMENT. — TRUE SUN. — MORNING CHRONICLE. — FIRST AUTHORSHIP.. — WRITING THE " SKETCHES." — JOHN BLACK, OUR OLD-TIME EDITOR. — RECOLLECTIONS BY N. P. WILLIS. — PUBLISHER. - - - - 44

Chapter III

THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF " BOZ." — VARIETY OF THE "SKETCHES." — EPIGRAM. — THE DEMOSTHENES OF THE TAP. — OLD BAILEY CHARACTERS. — FAGIN AND THE ARTFUL DODGER SHADOWED FORTH. — BUMBLE AND MRS. GAMP. — CRUIKSHANK'S ILLUSTRATIONS. — THE COUNTESS AND THE PUBLISHER. - - - 55

CHAPTER lY.

FIKST LAURELS WOj!T. — HOW THE " PICKWICK PAPERS" WERE BEaUN. — THE SHILLING NUMBER SYSTEM. — • GREEN PAPER COVERS. — LEVER AND THACKERAY. — MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD. — COPYRIGHT. — PROPOSED NIMROD CLUB. — MR. PICKWICK FOUND AT RICHMOND. — RECEPTION OP PICKWICK. — INTRODUCTION OP SAM

WELLER. — AUTHOR AND PUBLISHERS. BULWER.

THE GREAT LITERARY REVIEWS. MISS MITFORD'S

CRITICISM. — SCOTT AND DICKENS. — WHAT PICKWICK HAS DONE. — IN A PICKWICKIAN SENSE. — LADY jersey's SAM WELLER BALL. - - - - 62

^CHAPTER V.

THE wits' miscellany." — DJCKENS EDITS BENTLEY'S.

DOUGLAS JERROLD. ARTISTS AND AUTHORS. DIC-

KENS' CONTRIBUTIONS. — OLIVER TWIST. — PURPOSE AND MORAL. — AUTHOR'S LAW. — FAGIN's CONVICTION.

— Jacob's island. — dramatic versions. - - 79

/^ CHAPTER YI.

PUBLICATIONS UNAVOWED OR FORGOTTEN. — SUNDAY IN LONDON. — THE POOR MEN'S SUNDAY DINNER. — SKETCHES OF YOUNG LADIES AND OF YOUNG GENTLE- MEN. — MEMOIRS OP GRIMALDI. — THE PIC-NIC PAPERS. — THOMAS MOORE'S PROSE AND VERSE. — DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES : THE STRANGE GENTLEMAN, VILLAGE COQUETTES, IS SHE HIS WIFE ? — AMATEUR ACTING. — author's READINGS. 90

CHAPTER VII.

MARRTAGE. — GEORGE HOGARTH. — A COMPLIMENT FROM

LOCKHART. DICKENS A MAN OF METHOD. THE

MISSES HOGARTH. FANNY HOGARTH's SUDDEN DEATH.

PUBLICATION SUSPENDED. MR. DICKENS INTER- VIEWED. — " YOUNG BOZZES." ----- 100

Y' CHAPTER VIII.

^TIRES FROM BENTLEY's MISCELLANY. — RETROSPECT. — YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS. — PICKS UP JOHN BROWDIB AND WACKFORD SQUEERS. — NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. — •

DOTHEBOYS HALL. THE CRUMMLES PARTY. — CHEERY-

BLE BROTHERS. — CHANGE OF PLOT. — AUTHORSHIP

AVOWED. PORTRAIT BY MACLISE. NICKLEBY ON

THE PARISIAN STAGE. — MR. THACKERAY AND JULES JANIN. — CONTINUATION OF NICKLEBY. — TROOPS OF FRIENDS. 107

CHAPTER IX.

MASTER Humphrey's clock. — its proposed object. —

ILLUSTRATIONS. — THE WORKS. — AUTHOR's CONFES- SION. — MR. PICKWICK AND THE WELLERS REVIVED. — THE PRECOCIOUS GRANDSON. — OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. — LITTLE NELL. — THOMAS HOOD. — BARNABY RUDGE. — RIOTS OF LONDON. — THE RAVEN. — LORD JEFFREY. — DINNER AT EDINBURGH. — CHRISTOPHER NORTH. — PUBLIC SPEAKING. 117

CHAPTER X.

VISIT TO AMERICA. — AT BOSTON. — DICKENS'S DINNER. — GEOFFREY CRAYON AND BOZ. — DICKENS AT SUNNY- SIDE. — IN PHILADELPHIA. — WASHINGTON. — IN CON- GRESS. 133

^ CHAPTER XI.

AMERICAN NOTES FOR GENERAL CIRCULATION. — PICK- WICK READINGS AT A WHITE-SMITH's. — RECEPTION OF THE NOTES IN ENGLAND. — OTHER TOURISTS. — CHANGE FOR THE NOTES. — LORD JEFFREY'S OPINION. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. CRUSADE AGAINST SELFISH- NESS. — ENGLISH CRITICISMS. — CHRISTMAS CAROL AND ITS FOLLOWERS. — JOURNEY TO ITALY. - - 150

CHAPTER XII.

relations with artists. — george cruikshank. — tom and jerry. — how oliver twist was brought

to london. re-purchasing copyrights. — robert

Seymour's sketches. — succeeded by " phiz." —

THE author's last HISTORY OF PICKWICK. — THE

PALAZZO PESCHIERE IN GENOA. KIND DEALINGS

WITH AN ARTIST. — UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM CHARLES DICKENS. 161

^CHAPTER XIII.

VISIT TO ITALY AND SWITZERLAND. — EpiTQR SHIP OF DAILY NEWS. — LONDON NEWSPAPERgs.V- PICTURES FROM ITALY. — RETURN TO SWITZERLAND. — DOMBEY AND SON. — LORD JEFFREY ON THE DEATH OF LITTLE PAUL. 175

CHAPTER XIV.

ORIGINALS OF FICTITIOUS CHARACTERS. — OLD WELLER AND MISS HUDDART. — MR. TRACY TUPMAN AND THE FAT BOY. — MRS. BARDELL. MR. JUSTICE STARE- LEIGH. — MR. SERGEANT BUZFUZ. — DODSON AND FOGG. — MR. PERKER. — POLICE MAGISTRATE FANG. — VIN- CENT CRUMMLES. — W. T. MONCRIEFP. — CHEERYBLE BROTHERS. — DANIEL GRANT'S DINNER-PEGS. — MRS. NICKLEBY. — SIR JOHN CHESTER. — ALDERMAN CUTE. — MR. DOMBEY. — PERCH. — SOL. GILLS. — CAPTAIN CUTTLE. WILKINS MICAWBER. ESTHER SUMMER- SON. MR. BOYTHORN AND LITTLE NELL. INSPECTOR

BUCKET. — CARLAVERO'S ENGLISHMAN. — MR. JULIUS SLINKTON. 188

CHAPTER XY.

LETTER-WRITING. — EPISTOLATORY MENDICANTS. — A

NOTE FROM YORKSHIRE. — MR. EWART. A SLOW

BINDER. MASTER HUMPHREY'S " WORKS." TAL-

FOURD'S post-prandial reading. LETTERS TO TAL-

FOURD, FRANK STONE, AND MACKENZIE. — MAMMOTH JOURNALS. — THE MOON HOAX. — LORD NUGENT. - 210

CHAPTER XVI.

POETRY IN PROSE. — THACKERAY'S OPINION. — RYTHMI- CAL LANGUAGE. EXAMPLES FROM SOUTHEY, SHELLEY

AND DICKENS. LITTLE NELL'S FUNERAL. LESSON

OF DEATH TO LIFE. — SMIKe'S GRAVE-STONE. — NIAGARA. — HYMN OF THE WILTSHIRE LABORERS. — A WORD IN SEASON. 221

CHAPTER XVII.

LITTLE DORRIT. — THE CIRCUMLOCUTION OFFICE. — HARD TIMES. — TALE OF TWO CITIES. — GREAT EXPEC- TATIONS. — ^NEW CHRISTMAS STORIES. — OUR MUTUAL

FRIEND. AMENDE TO THE JEWS. SYSTEMATIC

BUSINESS HABITS. — DEALINGS WITH AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. - - 229

CHAPTER XYIII.

CHARLES DICKENS'S NAMES. — ODD NAMES. — FUTILITY OF PERSONAL ARGUxMENT. — RETORT ON LOCKHART. — MAKING FRIENDS. — MR. REE-ACK. — LORD CAMPBELL. — TEMPERATE HABITS. — UNDERVALUING SHAKES' PEARE WORDSWORTH AND DICKENS — PHILADEL- PHIA STREETS. — PERSONAL TASTES. PITY FOR THE

FALLEN. TOWN AND COUNTRY. LONGING FOR SUD- DEN DEATH. JOHN DICKENS AND SHERIDAN.

CHILDREN. — DOMESTIC TROUBLES. - - - - 238

CHAPTER XIX.

FONDNESS FOR THEATRICALS. — AMATEUR ACTING. —

LORD LYTTON'S PLAY. QUEEN VICTORIA. — WILKIE

COLLINS'S PLAYS. — CAPTAIN BOBADIL. HANS CHRIS- TIAN ANDERSEN AT GAD's HILL. — JERROLD ME- MORIAL. PUBLIC READINGS. SECOND VISIT TO

AMERICA. 256

CHAPTER XX.

SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. — RATIONALE OF HIS READ- INGS. — RECEPTION AT BOSTON. — EFFECTS OF THOUGHT

CONTENTS. 2t

AND TIME. — DRAMATIC POWER. — LONG WALKS. — LIST OP SELECTIONS. — CORRESPONDENCE. — LAST READINGS IN BOSTON AND NEW YORK. — PRESS BAN- QUET AT DELMONICO'S. — LAST WORDS ON THE AMERI- CAN NOTES. — AMENDE. — DEPARTURE. - - - 268

CHAPTER XXI.

RETURN TO ENGLAND. — IN HARNESS. — A NEW READING. — DINNER AT LIVERPOOL. — DANGEROUS ILLNESS. — GRAVE-SIDE SPEECH-MAKING. — GAD'S HILL HOUSE. — MISS CLARKE AT TAVISTOCK HOUSE. — HANS CHRIS- TIAN ANDERSEN. — FRANKLIN PHILP. — HABITS OP WORK. — LONG WALKS. — M. PECHTER. — CLOSE OF

1869. 286

CHAPTER XXII.

FAREWELL READINGS. — MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. — VISITS QUEEN VICTORIA. — HONORS DECLINED. — SPEECH AT ROYAL ACADEMY. — ILL HEALTH. — THE LAST WEEK. — CLOSING CORRESPONDENCE. — HIS CHRIS- TIAN BELIEF AND HOPE. — APOPLEXY. — DEATH. — GRIEF FROM THRONE TO COTTAGE. — BURIAL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. — DEAN STANLEY'S SERMON ON CHARLES DICKENS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. - 307

CHAPTER XXIII.

PURITY OF HIS WRITINGS. — VARIETY OF SUBJECTS AND CHARACTERS. — ABSENCE OF EGOTISM AND CYNICISM. — COMPARED WITH THACKERAY. — WILL HIS WRI- TINGS LIVE? — HIS DOMESTIC LIFE. — HIS BROAD

I CONTENTS.

christianity. — the caiaphas op plymouth church. — tributes from the pulpit. — charles Dickens's last words, and their great lesson. 333

^.UNCOLLECTED PIECES.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

THOMAS GRIFFITHS WAINEWRIGHT. — (jANUS WEATHER- COCK,) THE POISONER. 341

A FLY-LEAF IN A LIFE. 416

A PLEA FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE. - _ _ . 421

FULL REPORT OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OP EVERY- THING. - - 426

FULL REPORT OF THE SECOND MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF EVERY- THING. 450

THACKERAY. — IN MEMORIAM. 475

WILL OF CHARLES DICKENS.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF CHARLES DICKENS. - 479

LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.

Chapter I

LESSON OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS. — CHARACTER OP HIS GENIUS. — ANCESTRY. — JOHN DICKENS, THE GOVERNMENT CLERK. — HIS FAMILY. — REMOVAL TO LONDON. — NEWSPAPER REPORTER. — MICAWBER AND MRS. NICKLEBY. — CHARLES DICKENS'S EDUCATION. — TRUTH IN FICTION. — ROCHESTER VISITED BY THE PICKWICKIANS. — WATTS's HOSPITAL. — CLOISTERHAM,— gad's HILL.

The greatest writer of his age is gone, and the sudden blow has smitten the great heart of huraanit}'. There is no part of the civilized world where the name of Charles Dickens is unknown, where his genial and elevating writings are not valued.- They have been translated into many languages, and the characters which he created and the adventures in which he placed them have passed into the current literature of the world. Every reader mourns for him — the lowliest as well as the highest participate in one common sorrow. Life has been better and brighter for what he has done. He was the champion of the oppressed, he was the censor of the selfish rich. In a single one of his tales was matter far more serious and convincing than could be found in a pyramid of lengthy homilies, in which Christian charity was distinguished by its absence. Even when he amused, he taught. No vile thoughts, no prurient suggestions, no foul words are to be found in the writings of Charles Dickens. Even when he 2 (29)

treated of crime and poverty his language was not base or low. The practical spirit he endeavored to inculcate was that of comprehensive Christianity. His personal character was in accordance with his teaching. Chai'itable, kind-hearted, affectionate, temperate in living, ever doing his work as if he felt it a pleasure rather than a labor, there was a daily beauty in his life, in its earnestness, in its simplicity, in its purity, which was an exemplar in itself.

To him, even more appropriately than to the brilliant but erratic genius to whom they were addressed, might be applied the stanzas which spoke of one

"Whose mind was an essence, compounded with art, From the finest and best of all other men's powers ; Who ruled, like a wizard, the world of the heart, And could call up its sunshine, or bring down its showers ;—

" Whose humor, as gay as the firefly's light,

Play'd round every subject, and shone as it played ; — Whose wit, in the combat, as gentle as bright Ne'er carried a heart stain away on its blade ; —

*' Whose eloquence, — brightening whatever it tried, Whether reason or fancy, the gay or the grave, — Was as rapid, as deep, and as brilliant a tide, As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave !"

In ordinarj'- cases, a biography begins with some gencological narrative, intended to show that the person presented to the notice of the reader had particular ancestors. In England, it is considered something to boast of that the first-known of a man's family " came in with the Conqueror." In Scotland, it suffices for this founder of the line to have belonged, in his time, to some Celtic marauder or early Border raider. In Ireland, it is the fashion to go back to some period — before the island lost her nationality, " when Malachi wore the collar of gold which he won from the proud invader." In our own Northern States the New Englanders count back some two hundred and fifty years, dating from

ANCESTRY. 31

the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, while the chief boast of the South is that their lineage, more remote, dates from the colonization in the time of Elizabeth. As with families, so with individuals. Walter Scott was prouder of his distant cousinship with the ducal house of Buccleugh than of his own great genius which cast a flood of living glory upon his native land. Byron never forgot, and would have all the world remember, that, long before Henry the Eighth forcibly wrested Newstead Abbey from the monks, and bestowed it upon Sir John Bj^ron — he with the long beard, — sundry members of the family'' had fought in the Hol}'^ Land, during the Crusades. Even Washington Irving, who was nothing if not an American and a republican, could not resist the temptation, when writing the life of George Washington, of showing that one of his English progenitors was " Washingatune," during the reign of Saxon Edgar, in the tenth century, a time when few could spell, and fewer write. It has been, in fact, an ordinary weakness, this ambition of showing that a distinguished personage was not wholly what, in our ordinary parlance, is called " self-made." The majority of biographers exhibit it; though Thomas Moore, who devoted some space, in his Life of Byron, to the glorification of the family-tree, had the good sense to reject it for himself On one occasion, when he was the favored guest of the then Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Fourth, and was brightening the horizon of the board with wit and song, his Royal host observed, " By the way, Moore, your surname is the same as that of the Marquis of Drogheda ? I shall ask him here, one of these days, to meet you. Of course, you belong to his family ?" There was a moment's pause, and then the Poet answered, "Our common descent is the same, I believe — from Adanu But I desire to inform your Royal Highness, that I am not akin to the Peerage. My father was son of a County Kerry farmer, and to this day keeps a grocer's shop in Dublin, where I was born and bred." The manliness and independence of this response certainly did not injure Moore — who usually was somewhat of a tuft-hunter, — in the opinion of those who heard it. Lord Thurlow was less independent, because less accurate, in his reply to the gentleman from the Herald's College, who waited upon him, in June, 111S, when he was created a peer, for particulars of his descent, out of which to construct a family pedigree, and said, " I suppose I may safely set you down as of the same blood with another Norfolk celebrity, John Thurloe, who was Secretary of State to the Commonwealth, under Oliver and Richard Cromwell ?" Thurlow, who was impetuous and rough, immediately blustered out, " You are wrong altogether, John Thurloe was an Essex man, and I am from Suffolk. He came of an old stock. There was one Thurlow, in my part of the county, who was a common carrier, and I think as he was an honest man, that you had better derive my lineage from 7m7i."

Charles Dickens, like many other illustrious personages, whose names are not written in the Herald's books at Doctor's Commons, had no ancestry to boast of, went through life extremely well, without crest or scutcheon, and was content to draw his nobility direct from the Creator. His father, plain John Dickens, who died some time ago, full of years, after having seen his son's universal popularity, and profited by his continuous bounty, was a Government clerk, stationed at Portsmouth Dockyard, in Hampshire, when his eldest son was born. He was in the Paymaster's office, and, in that capacity, had to travel from place to place, to pay charges a^nd salaries, during the great war which closed at Waterloo. Sometimes he went as far to the southwest of the English coast as Falmouth and Plymouth — oftener to Gosport, Dover, Sheerness, Chatham and Gravesend. He was a trusted and trustworthy person, to whom much money was confided, the " wooden walls " being costly in those days, and men-of-war's-men apt to get angry if, on landing at a port, after a long cruise, their arrears of wages were not immediately paid up. How foolishly, how recklessly

PARENTAGE AND KIN. 33

they lavished this money, can be judged from the naval romances " of the period " as written by Marryat, Chamier, Edward Howard, Johnson Neale, and others.

Mr. John Dickens was married in the early part of the present century, and his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Dickens, has been described to me as having much resembled Mrs. Nickleby, of happy memory, in the charming inaccuracy of her memory and the curious insecutiveness of her conversation. In later years she was tall and thin, with a wasp's waist, of which she was very vain, and was what is called "dressy." She was a good wife, ver}^ fond of her husband, devoted to her children, and extremely proud of her son Charles, who was kind and liberal to her from the time it was in his power to be so. Her family further consisted of the following children :

1. Fanny Dickens, who was a music-teacher for some time before her marriage with Mr. Bennett, a lawyer. She is dead.

2. Charles Dickens, "the world's heir of fame," born at Landport, a suburb of Portsmouth, on the 7th of Pebruarj'-, 1812 ; died at Gad's Hill, near the old Cathedral, city of Rochester, in Kent, on Thursday, the 9th of June, 1870, and interred in Westminster Abbey, on Tuesday, the 14th of June, 1870.

3. Letitia Dickens, married to Mr. Austen, engineer and architect in London. She is the only surviving member of this household.

4. Frederic William Dickens, who, through the influence of Lord John Russel, an old and warm friend of Charles Dickens, obtained a clerkship in the Foreign Oflfice, London, but after some years, received a hint that from certain irregularities, his resignation would be accepted. On the 23d of October, 1868, he died of abscess on the lungs, at Darlington, where he had been stationed during the prece-. ding twelve months. He had suffered greatly during the last three weeks of his illness. The newspaper obituary which mentions this, adds: "The geniality — it was something more to those who could see below the surface — of Mr. Frederic Dickens's nature, and his ready fund of humor and anecdote, will not readily be forgotten by those who knew him best, and liked him best." Mr. Frederic Dickens may best be characterized, perhaps, as belonging to that numerous and careless class who enjoy life, on small means, without much regard for health. " Nobody's enemy but his own," is the general conversational epitaph on a man of this sort.

5. Alfred Dickens, was an architect or engineer, perhaps a little of both, upon the Malton Railroad, and is dead.

6. Augustus Dickens, was brought up in the counting-house of John Chapman & Co., No. 2 Leadenhall street, London, and came to this country, some ten or twelve years ago. He became a clerk in the Illinois Railroad Company, and died in Chicago, five years ago. His second wife (Miss Bertha Phillips, daughter of the late Charles Phillips, the celebrated Irish orator,) whom he brought here and married, died on Christmas eve, 1868, at Chicago, leaving three beautiful children. She was alive when Charles Dickens last was in America, but, as none of the family had recognized her, and he thought it not impossible that she might be intruded upon him, being known to be his sister-in-law, he did not visit Chicago, It is stated that, on hearing of her distressed circumstances, he sent her a handsome pecuniary present. Augustus was the original " Boses."

Charles Dickens may be considered less a townsman than a towns-baby of Landport, near Portsmouth. When he was only twelve months old, his father removed from Portsmouth Dockyard to Somerset House, London, where he was intrusted with some very important duties, that do not appear to have suited his taste any better than they did his peculiar abilities, for Mr. John Dickens was undeniably a man of talent and energy, gifted with a lively and convivial spirit that made him, wherever he Aveut, "a hail

YOUTH AT CHATHAM. 35

fellow well met," and a man so generally liked that his company was much sought after, which his personal friends hint led liim to " launch out," like many other kindred spirits, a little more than his means would permit, and as a natural consequence, he was not altogether free from those peculiar anxities and troubles that follow such indulgences. Somerset House, then, was not a congenial place for Mr. Dickens, and that worthy gentleman, with his wife and young Charles, one fine morning embarked in one of the hoys then plying between London and Chatham, taking his household effects with him, and after a day or so settled down as an official in Chatham Dockyard, selecting as his place of abode a plain-looking house, with a whitewashed plaster front, and a small garden, front and behind, in St. Marj^'s place, or the Brook, which belonged to a Mr. Smart, and was next to an original and humble-looking building, also of plastered exterior, long known as the Providence Chapel, belonging to a sect of Baptists, where Charles's schoolmaster, the Rev. Mr. Giles, officiated as pastor. Charles, like most children who have the good fortune to be first-born sons, was his mother's pet. Mr. Dickens, sen., here again was not permitted to settle down quietly, but was destined to follow a roving kind of commission between the dockyards of Chatham, Sheerness, and other Government places; and in course of time young Charles grew up to be a boy old enough to wear a broad white collar, blue jacket, buckled shoes, and a large peaked cap.

Mr. John Dickens, the father, was superannuated in 1816, while yet in the prime of life, and allowed a pension, — according to the liberal practice in England. There was a general reduction of the naval and military establishments, at the close of the war, and therefore Mr. Dickens was dismissed. He wrote an unusually good hand, round and clear, (as I perceive by a note of his now before me, dated thirty years after this period,) and, removing his household goods to London, succeeded in obtaining an engagement as reporter upon tlie Morning Chronicle. Active in mind and body, with a great deal of energy, and a remarkable aptitude for work, John Dicliens was a useful journalist. He continued on the Chronicle, I have heard, until the Daily News was established, in January, 1846, when Charles Dickens placed him and Mr. George Hogarth on the staff of that paper, and 1 believe he remained on it to the last. It was a constant joke, among newspaper-men, that Charles Dickens had drawn upon his father's actual character, when he was writing David Copperfield, and put him into that story as Micawber ; but though there was a great deal of " waiting until something should turn up," in much tliat John Dickens did, (and did not,) a man who had kept himself in London, during a period of over forty years, upon the newspaper press, with only a single change, and that for the better, was considerably above the Micawber scale. Some traits of the living may have been transmitted, with the novelist's natural exaggeration, to the fictitious character. A journalist, with wife and six young children, must always find it difficult to keep his head above water in London, where, (the price of bread regulating all other prices of provisions,) the four pounds loaf then cost twenty-five cents. It is possible that a man may have found it rather difficult to " raise" a brood of six children, "my dam and all her little ones," upon four or five guineas a week, to say nothing of their schooling. Now and then, perhaps, the reporter may have had some " outside" chances, but it may be presumed that an avuncular relation, sporting the three golden balls of Lorabardy over his place of business, may have been resorted to when money was scarce. Perhaps, too, on an emergency, money had to be raised by " a little bill." The Micawber mode of financiering, as developed in David Copperfield, a tale which avowedly gives many of its author's own experiences, may have been drawn less from imagination than memory, aud it may be noticed that while Micawber does and says many unwise things, he never goes into anything which he con-

THE SCHOOLBOY. 37

sidered dishonest or dishonorable. For my own part, I see no reason why John Dickens should not have been the original of Wilkins Micawber. He considered himself rather complimented in thus being converted into literary " capital" by his son.

How and where the Dickens children were educated, on the father's small salary, is to me unknown. We have to look after the eldest son only. Charles's education was plain enough. He received it, for the most part, in a school at Chatham. It included some little study of the Eton Latin Grammar, but no Greek. Perhaps, the experiences of poor David Copperfield may have been those of young Charles Dickens. It is known that, at an early age, the heroes of Fielding's and Smollett's novels, of Goldsmith's Dr. Primrose, of Le Sage's French-Spanish Gil Bias, of Cervantcs's immortal Knight of La Mancha, and De Foe's life-like Robinson Crusoe, were familiar friends of the lad — for he has told us that he fell into a habit of impersonating each of them, in turn, for periods of from a week to a month, and thus lived in the ideal world of romance. Then there were the Arabian Nights and the Tales of the Geuii, throwing a chastened Oriental glamour over all, while a balance of realism, one halfpenny worth of bread to a vast quantity of sack, was supplied by sundry volumes of voyages and travels.

The miserable experiences at Salem House, with the cruel practices in which Mr. Creakle, its brute of a master, used delightedly to indulge, most probably were those of Dickens himself; — he could scarcely have invented them. The boy, notwithstanding, picked up a plain education, with as much Latin grammar as enabled him, by and by, to write English with propriety, and prepared him, after he had attained manhood and celebrity, to master the French language, so as to translate it with ease, and finally to speak it with fluency and a good accent. In his European tour, and by subsequent study, he picked up some knowledge of Italian.

Charles Dickens was intimately acquainted, from his boyish clays, with that pai't of Kent, containing the ancient episcopal city of Rochester, situated on the river Medway, which surrounds the naval yard and harbor of Chatham. In the preface to Nicholas Nickleby, this sentence is to be found : " I cannot call to mind, now, how I came to hear of Yorkshire schools, when I was not a very robust child, sitting in by-places, near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza."

This neighborhood, early and late, had a great influence on Dickens. In 1836, when he began The Pickivick Papers, (the date of the story being 1827, a pre-railroad period,) he makes the hero start from the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, then a great coaching centre, with the resolution of making Rochester his fii'st halting-place. When the party, accompanied by Jingle, reach Rochester Bridge, (erected in the time of King John, six hundred and fifty years ago,) the magnificent ruin of Rochester Castle, built by Bishop Gundulph, and the sj^lendid Cathedral, still well preserved, and erected by Bishop Odo, brother of "William the Conqueror, are signally praised. Moreover the party are made to pull up at the Bull Inn, in the High street, next door to Wright's, which Jingle describes as " dear — very dear — half a crown in the bill if you look at the waiter, — charge you more if you dine at a friend's than the}^ would if you dined in the coffee-room — rum fellows — ver3\" None but one very well acquainted with the locality could have grouped together the four towns, Stroud, Rochester, Chatham, and Brompton, which are thus described :

The principal productions of these towns, (says Mr. Pickwick,) appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dock-yard men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets, are marine stores, hardbake, apples, flat-fish and oysters. The streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly b^^ the

OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER. 39

conviviality of the military. It is truly delightful to a philanthropic mind, to see these gallant men, staggering along under the influence of an overflow, both of animal and ardent spirits ; more especially when we remember that the following them about, and jesting with them, afl'ords a cheap and innocent amusement for the boy population. Nothing (adds Mr. Pickwick) can exceed their good humor. It was but the day before my arrival, that one of them had been most grossly insulted in the house of a publican. The bar-maid had positively refused to draw him any more liquor ; in return for which, he had (merely in playfulness) drawn his bayonet, and Avounded the girl in the shoulder. And yet this fine fellow was the very first to go down to the house next morning, and express his readiness to overlook the matter, and forget what had occurred ! The consumption of tobacco in these towns (continued Mr. Pickwick) must be very great : and the sinell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. A superficial traveller might object to the dirt which is their leading characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traflic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying.