Life of Charles Dickens

Contents

Biography of Dickens, by Leslie Stephen ... 1

Chapter I

The lottery of education; Charles Dickens born February 7, 1812; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood; happy days at Chatham; family troubles; similarity between little Charles and David Copperfield; John Dickens taken to the Marshalsea; his character; Charles employed in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into family and prison circle; family in comparative comfort at the Marshalsea; father released; Charles leaves the blacking business; his mother; he is sent to Wellington House Academy in 1824; character of that place of learning; Dickens masters its humours thoroughly 49

Chapter II

Dickens becomes a solicitor's clerk in 1827; then a reporter; his experiences in that capacity; first story published in The Old Monthly Magazine for January, 1834; writes more Sketches; power of minute observation thus iv CONTENTS

early shown; masters the writer's art; is paid for his contributions to the Chronicle; marries Miss Hogarth on April 2, 1836; appearance at that date; power of physical endurance; admirable influence of his peculiar education; and its drawbacks 72

Chapter III

Origin of Pickwick; Seymour's part therein; first number published on April 1, 1836; early numbers not a success; suddenly the book becomes the rage; English literature just then in want of its novelist; Dickens's kingship acknowledged; causes of the book's popularity; its admirable humour and other excellent qualities ; Sam Weller ; Mr. Pickwick himself ; book read by everybody 90

Chapter IV

Dickens works "double tides" from 1836 to 1839; appointed editor of Bentley's Miscellany at beginning of 1837, and commences Oliver Twist; Quarterly Review predicts his speedy downfall; pecuniary position at this time; moves from Furnival's Inn to Doughty Street; death of his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth; his friendships; absence of all jealousy in his character; habits of work; riding and pedestrianizing ; walking in London streets necessary to the exercise of his art 102

CONTENTS V

Chapter V

Oliver Twist; analysis of the book; doubtful probability of Oliver's character; Nicholas Nicklehy; its wealth of character; Master Humphrey's Clock projected and begun in April, 1840; the public disappointed in its expectations of a novel; Old Curiosity Shop commenced, and miscellaneous portion of Master Humphrey's Clock dropped; Dickens's fondness for taking a child as his hero or heroine; Little Nell; tears shed over her sorrows; general admiration for the pathos of her story; is such admiration altogether deserved? Paul Dombey more natural; Little Nell's death too declamatory as a piece of writing; Dickens nevertheless a master of pathos; Barnaby Rudge; a historical novel dealing with times of the Gordon riots 112

Chapter VI

Dickens starts for United States in January, 1842; had been splendidly received a little before at Edinburgh; why he went to the United States; is enthusiastically welcomed; at first he is enchanted; then expresses the greatest disappointment; explanation of the change; what the Americans thought of him; American Notes; his views modified on his second visit to America in 1867-8; takes to fierce private theatricals for rest; delight of the children on his return to England; an admirable father . .132 vi CONTENTS

Chapter VII

Dickens again at work and play; publication of Martin Chuzzlewit begun in January, 1843; plot not Dickens's strong point; this not of any vital consequence; a novel not really remembered by its story; Dickens's books often have a higher unity than that of plot; selfishness the central idea of Martin Chuzzlewit; a great book, and yet not at the time successful; Dickens foresees money embarrassments; publishes the admirable Christmas Carol at Christmas, 1843; and determines to go for a space to Italy 150

Chapter VIII

Journey through France ; Genoa ; the Italy of 1 844 ; Dickens charmed with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a few weeks; his palace at Genoa; he sets to work upon The Chimes; gets passionately interested in the little book; travels through Italy to read it to his friends in London; reads it on December 2, 1844; is soon back again in Italy; returns to London in the summer of 1845; on January 21, 1846, starts The Daily News; holds the post of editor three weeks; Pictures from Italy first published in Daily News 162

Chapter IX

Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins

CONTENTS vii

Dombey; has great difficulty in getting on without streets; the Battle of Life written; Domhey; its pathos; pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters ; Dickens's treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private theatricals again; the Haunted Man; David Copperfeld begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point in Dickens's career as a writer; Household Words started on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its successor. All the Year Round; domestic sorrows cloud the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins Bleak House; story of the novel ; its Chancery episodes; Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant quarters at Boulogne . .174

Chapter X

Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, 1853; was it infra dig. that he should read for money? he begins his paid readings in April, 1858; reasons for their success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them; how the tones of Dickens's voice linger in the memory of one who heard him . . . 200

Chapter XI

Hard Times commenced in Household Words for April 1, 1854; it is an attack on the "hard viii CONTENTS

fact " school of philosophers ; what Macaulay and Mr. Ruskin thought of it; the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for " Administrative Reform " ; Dickens in the thick of the movement; Little Dorrit and the Circumlocution O^cej character of Mr. Dorrit admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris from December, 1855, to May, 1856; he buys Gad's Hill Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with his wife; and separation in May, 1858; lying rumours; how these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant protest in Household Words; and writes an unjustifiable letter 207

Chapter XII

The Tale of Two Cities, a story of the great Frendi Revolution; Phiz's connection with Dickens's works comes to an end; his art and that of Cruikshank; both too essentially caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; Great Expectations; its story and characters; Our Mutual Friend begun in May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens's extraordinary sympathy for Eugene Wrayburn; generally his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why his books are not vtilgar; he himself a man of great real refinement .... 225

CONTENTS ix

Chapter XIII

Dickens's health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident in June, 1865; but bates no jot of his high courage, and works on at his readings; sails for America on a reading tour in November, 1867; is wretchedly ill, and yet continues to read day after day; comes back to England, and reads on; health failing more and more; reading has to be abandoned for a time; begins to write his last and unfinished book, Edwin Droodj except health all seems well with him; on June 8, 1870, he works at his book nearly all day ; at dinner time is struck down; dies on the following day, June the 9th; is buried in Westminster Abbey among his peers; nor will his fame suffer eclipse . . . 239

Index 259

Biography of Charles Dickens

By Leslie Stephen

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), novelist, was bom 7 February, 1812, at 387 Mile End Terrace, Commercial Road, Landport, Portsea. His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the navy pay office, with a salary of 80Z. a year, was then stationed in the Portsmouth dockyard. The wife of the first Lord Houghton told Mr. Wemyss Reid that Mrs. Dickens, mother of John, was housekeeper at Crewe, and famous for her powers of story-telling (Wemyss Reid, in Daily News, 8 October, 1887). John Dickens had eight children by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Barrow, a lieutenant in the navy. The eldest, Fanny, was born in 1810, Charles, the second, was christened Charles John Huffman (erroneously entered Huff ham in the register) , but dropped the last two names. Charles Dickens remembered the little garden of the house at Portsea, though his father was recalled to London when he was only two years old. In 1816 (probably) the family moved to Chatham. Dickens was small and sickly ; he amused himself by reading and watching the games of other boys. His mother taught him his letters, and he pored over a small collection of books belonging to his father. Among them were Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and especially Smollett's novels, by which he was deeply impressed. He wrote an infantine tragedy called Misnar, founded on the Tales of the Genii. James Lamert, the stepson of his mother's eldest sister, Mary (whose second husband was Dr. Lamert, an army surgeon at Chatham) , had a taste for private theatricals.

Lamert took Dickens to the theatre, in which the child greatly delighted. John Dickens's salary was raised to 200/. in 1819, and to 350Z. in 1820, at which amount it remained until he left the service, 9 March, 1825. It was, however, made insufficient by his careless habits, and in 1821 he left his first house, 2 (now 11) Ordnance Terrace, for a smaller house, 18 St. Mary's Place, next to a Baptist chapel. Dickens was then sent to school with the minister, Mr. Giles (see Langton, Childhood of Dickens). In the winter of 1822-3 his father was recalled to Somerset House, and settled in Bayham Street, Camden Town, whither his son followed in the spring. John Dickens, whose character is more or less represented by Micawber, was now in difficulties, and had to make a composition with his creditors. He was (as Dickens emphatically stated) a very affectionate father, and took a pride in his son's precocious talents. Yet at this time (according to the same statement), he was entirely forgetful of the son's claims to a decent education. In spite of the family difficulties, the eldest child, Fanny, was sent as a pupil to the Royal Academy of Music, but Charles was left to black his father's boots, look after the younger children, and do small errands. Lamert made a little theatre for the child's amusement. His mother's elder brother, Thomas Barrow, and a godfather, took notice of him occasionally. The uncle lodged in the upper floor of a house in which a bookselling business was carried on, and the proprietress lent the child some books. His literary tastes were kept alive, and he tried his hand at writing a description of the uncle's barber. His mother now made an attempt to retrieve the family fortunes by taking a house, 4 Gower

Street North, where a brass plate announced ' Mrs. Dickens's Establishment,' but failed to attract any pupils. The father was at last arrested and carried to the Marshalsea, long afterwards described in Little Dorrit. (Mr. Langton thinks that the prison was the King's Bench, where, as he says, there was a prisoner named Dorrett in 1824.) All the books and furniture went gradually to the pawnbroker's. James Lamert had become manager of a blacking warehouse, and obtained a place for Dickens at 6s. or 7s. a week in the office at Hungerford Stairs. Dickens was treated as a mere drudge, and employed in making up parcels. He came home at night to the dismantled house in Gower Street till the family followed the father to the Marshalsea, and then lodged in Camden Town with a reduced old lady, a Mrs. Roylance, the original of Mrs. Pipchin in Dombey and Son. Another lodging was found for him near the prison with a family which is represented by the Garlands in his Old Curiosity Shop. The Dickenses were rather better off in prison than they had been previously. The maid-of-all-work who followed them from Bayham Street became the Marchioness of the Old Curiosity Shop.

The elder Dickens at last took the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors Act, and moved first to Mrs. Roylance's house, and then to a house in Somers Town. Dickens's amazing faculty of observation is proved by the use made in his novels of all that he now saw, especially in the prison scenes of Pickwick and in the earlier part of David Coppei'field. That he suffered acutely is proved by the singular bitterness shown in his own narrative printed by Forster. He felt himself degraded by his occupation. When his sister won a prize at the Royal Academy he was deeply humiliated by the contrast of his own position, though incapable of envying her success. This was about April, 1824.

The family circumstances improved. The elder Dickens had received a legacy, which helped to clear off his debts ; he had a pension, and after some time he obtained employment as reporter to the Morning Chronicle. About 1824 Dickens was sent to a school kept by a Mr. Jones in the Hampstead Road, and called the Wellington House Academy. His health improved. His school- fellows remembered him as a handsome lad, overflowing with animal spirits, writing stories, getting up little theatrical performances, and fond of harmless practical jokes, but not distinguishing himself as a scholar. After two j^ears at this school, Dickens went to another kept by a Mr. Dawson in Henrietta Street, Brunswick Square. He then became clerk in the office of Mr. Molloy in New Square, Lincoln's Inn, and soon afterwards (from May, 1827, to November, 1828) , clerk in the office of Mr. Edward Blackmore, attorney, of Gray's Inn. His salary with Mr. Blackmore rose from 135. Gd. to 155. a week. Dickens's energy had only been stimulated by the hardships through which he had passed. He was determined to force his way upwards. He endeavoured to supplement his scanty education by reading at the British Museum, and he studied shorthand writing in the fashion described in David Copperfield, Copperfield's youthful passion for Dora reflects a passion of the same kind in Dickens's own career, which, though hopeless, stimulated his ambition. He became remarkably expert in shorthand, and after two years' reporting in the Doctors' Commons and other courts, he entered the gallery of the House of Commons as reporter to the True Sun. He was spokesman for the reporters in a successful strike.

For two sessions he reported for the Mirror of Parliament, started by a maternal uncle, and in the session of 1835 became reporter for the Morning Chronicle. While still reporting at Doctors' Commons he had thoughts of becoming an actor. He made an application to George Bartley, manager at Co vent Garden, which seems to have only missed acceptance by an accident, and took great pains to practise the art. He finally abandoned this scheme on obtaining his appointment on the Morning Chronicle (Forster ii., 179). His powers were rapidly developed by the requirements of his occupation. He was, as he says (Letters J i. 438) , ' the best and most rapid reporter ever known.' He had to hurry to and from country meetings, by coach and postchaise, encountering all the adventures incident to travelling in the days before railroads, making arrangements for forwarding reports, and attracting the notice of his employers by his skill, resource, and energy. John Black, the editor, became a warm friend and was, he says, his ' first hearty out-and-out appreciator.'

He soon began to write in the periodicals. The appearance of his first article, A Dinner at Poplar Walk (reprinted as Mr, Minn^ and his Cousin), in the Monthly Magazine for December, 1833, filled him with exultation. Nine others followed till February, 1835. The paper in August, 1834, first bore the signature ' Boz.' It was the pet name of his youngest brother, Augustus, called * Moses,' after the boy in the Vicar of Wakefield^ which was corrupted into Boses and Boz. An Evening Chronicle as an appendix to the Morning Chronicle, was started in 1835 under the management of George Hogarth, formerly a friend of Scott. The Monthly Magazine was unable to pay for the sketches, and Dickens now offered to continue his sketches in the new venture. His offer was accepted, and his salary raised from five to seven guineas a week. In the spring of 1836 the collected papers were published as Sketches by Boz, with illustrations by Cruikshank, the copyright being bought for 150/. by a publisher named Macrone. On 2 April, 1836, Dickens married Catherine, eldest daughter of Hogarth, his colleague on the Morning Chronicle. He had just begun the Pickwick Papers. The Sketches, in which it is now easy to see the indications of future success, had attracted some notice in their original form. Albany Fonblanque had warmly praised them, and publishers heard of the young writer. Messrs. Chapman & Hall, then beginning business, had published a book called The Squib Annual in November, 1835, with illustrations by Seymour. Seymour was anxious to produce a series of * cockney sporting plates.' Chapman & Hall thought that it might answer to publish such a series in monthly parts accompanied by letterpress. Hall applied to Dickens, suggesting the invention of a Nimrod Club, the members of which should get into comic difficulties suitable for Seymour's illustrations. Dickens, wishing for a freer hand, and having no special knowledge of sport, substituted the less restricted scheme of the Pickwick Club, and wrote the first number, for which Seymour drew the illustrations. The first two or three numbers excited less attention than the collected Sketches, which had just appeared. Seymour killed himself before the appearance of the second number. Robert William Buss illustrated the third number. Thackeray, then an unknown youth, applied to Dickens for the post of illustrator; but Dickens finally chose Hablot Knight Browne, who illustrated the fourth and all the subsequent numbers, as well as many of the later novels.

The success of Pickwick soon became extraordinary. The binder prepared four hundred copies of the first number, and forty thousand of the fifteenth. The marked success began with the appearance of Sam Weller in the fifth number. Sam Weller is in fact the incarnation of the qualities to which the success was due. Educated like his creator in the streets of London, he is the ideal cockney. His exuberant animal spirits, humorous shrewdness, and kindliness under a mask of broad farce, made him the favourite of all cockneys in and out of London, and took the gravest readers by storm. All that Dickens had learnt in his rough initiation into life, with a power of observation unequalled in its way, was poured out with boundless vivacity and prodigality of invention. The book, beginning as farce, became admirable comedy, and has caused more hearty and harmless laughter than any book in the language. If Dickens's later works surpassed Pickwick in some ways, Pickwick shows in their highest development the qualities in which he most surpassed other writers. Sam Weller's peculiar trick of speech has been traced with probabihty to Samuel Vale, a popular comic actor, who in 1822 performed Simon Spatterdash in a farce called The Boarding House, and gave currency to a similar phraseology. {Notes and Queries, 6th ser. v. 388; and Origin of Sam Weller, with a facsimile of a contemporary piratical imitation of Pickwick, 1883.)

Dickens was now a prize for which publishers might contend. In the next few years he undertook a great deal of work, with confidence natural to a buoyant temperament, encouraged by unprecedented success, and achieved new triumphs without permitting himself to fall into slovenly composition. Each new book was at least as carefully written as its predecessor. Pickwick appeared from April, 1836, to November, 1837. Oliver Twist began while Pickwick was still proceeding, in January, 1837, and ran till March, 1839. Nicholas Nicklehy overlapped Oliver Twist, beginning in April, 1838, and ending in October, 1839. In February, 1838, Dickens went to Yorkshire to look at the schools caricatured in Dotheboys Hall. (For the original of Dotheboys Hall see Notes and Queries, 4th ser. vi. 245, and 5th ser. iii. 325.) A short pause followed. Dickens had thought of a series of papers, more or less on the model of the old Spectator^ in which there was to be a club, including the Wellers, varied essays satirical and descriptive, and occasional stories. The essays were to appear weekly, and for the whole he finally selected the title Master Humphrey's Clock. The plan was carried out with modifications. It appeared at once that the stories were the popular part of the series; the club and the intercalated essay disappeared, and Master Humphrey's Clock resolved itself into the two stories. The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnahy Rudge. During 1840 and 1841 Oliver Twist seems to have been at first less popular than its fellowstories; but Nicholas Nickleby surpassed even Pickwick. Sydney Smith on reading it confessed that Dickens had ' conquered him,* though he had ' stood out as long as he could.' Master Humphrey's Clock began with a sale of seventy thousand copies, which declined when there was no indication of a continuous story, but afterwards revived. The Old Curiosity Shop, as republished, made an extraordinary success. Barnahy Rudge has apparently never been equally popular.

The exuberant animal spirits, and the amazing fertility in creating comic types, which made the fortune of Pickwick, were now combined with a more continuous story. The ridicule of Bumbledom in Oliver Twist, and of Yorkshire schools in Nicholas Nicklehy, showed the power of satirical portraiture already displayed in the prison scenes of Pickwick. The humourist is not yet lost in the satirist, and the extravagance of the caricature is justified by its irresistible fun. Dickens was also showing the command of the pathetic which fascinated the ordinary reader. The critic is apt to complain that Dickens kills his children as if he liked it, and makes his victims attitudinize before the footlights. Yet Landor, a severe critic, thought ' Little Nell ' equal to any character in fiction, and Jeffrey, the despiser of sentimentalism, declared that there had been nothing so good since Cordelia (Forster, i. 177, 226). Dickens had written with sincere feeling, and with thoughts of Mary Hogarth, his wife's sister, whose death in 1837 had profoundly affected him, and forced him to suspend the publication of Pickwick (no number was published in June, 1837). When we take into account the command of the horrible shown by the murder in Oliver Twisty and the unvarying vivacity and brilhance of style, the secret of Dickens's hold upon his readers is tolerably clear. Barnahy Rudge is remarkable as an attempt at the historical novel, repeated only in his Tale of Two Cities; but Dickens takes little pains to give genuine local colour, and appears to have regarded the eighteenth century chiefly as the reign of Jack Ketch.

Dickens's fame had attracted acquaintances, many of whom were converted by his genial qualities into fast friends. In March, 1837, he moved from the chambers in Furnival's Inn, which he had occupied for some time previous to his marriage, to 48 Doughty Street, and towards the end of 1839 he moved to a ' handsome house with a considerable garden ' in Devonshire Terrace, facing York Gate, Regent's Park. He spent summer holidays at Broadstairs, always a favourite watering-place, Twickenham, and Petersham, and in the summer of 1841 made an excursion in Scotland, received the freedom of Edinburgh, and was welcomed at a public dinner where Jeffrey took the chair and his health was proposed by Christopher North. He was at this time fond of long rides, and delighted in boyish games. His buoyant spirit and hearty good-nature made him a charming host and guest at social gatherings of all kinds except the formal. He speedily became known to most of his literary contemporaries, such as Landor (whom he visited at Bath in 1841), Talfourd, Procter, Douglas Jerrold, Harrison Ains worth, Wilkie, and Edwin Landseer. His closest intimates were Macready, Maclise, Stanfield, and John Forster. Forster had seen him at the office of the True Sun, and had afterwards met him at the house of Harrison Ainsworth. They had become intimate at the time of Mary Hogarth's death, when Forster visited him, on his temporary retirement, at Hampstead. Forster, whom he afterwards chose as his biographer, was serviceable both by reading his works before publication and by helping his business arrangements.

Dickens made at starting some rash agreements. Chapman & Hall had given him 15/. 15s. a number for Pickwick, with additional payments dependent upon the sale. He received, Forster thinks, 2,500Z. on the whole. He had also, with Chapman & Hall, rebought for 2,000Z. in 1837 the copyright of the

Sketches sold to Macrone in 1831 for 150Z. The success of Pickwick had raised the value of the book, and Macrone proposed to reissue it simultaneously with Pickwick and Oliver Twist. Dickens thought that this superabundance would be injurious to his reputation, and naturally considered Macrone to be extortionate. When, however, Macrone died, two years later, Dickens edited the Pic- Nic Papers (1841) for the benefit of the widow, contributing the preface and a story which was made out of his farce The Lamplighter. In November, 1837, Chapman & Hall agreed that he should have a share after five years in the copyright of Pickwick on condition that he should write a similar book, for which he was to receive 3,000Z., besides having the whole copyright after five years. Upon the success of Nicholas Nicklehy, written in fulfilment of this agreement, the publishers paid him an additional 1,500Z. in consideration of a further agreement, carried out by Master Humphrey's Clock. Dickens was to receive 50Z. for each weekly number, and to have half the profits; the copyright to be equally shared after five years. He had meanwhile agreed with Richard Bentley (1794-

1871) (22 August, 1836) to edit a new magazine from January, 1837, to which he was to supply a story; and had further agreed to write two other stories for the same pubKsher. Oliver Twist appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in accordance with the first agreement, and, on the conclusion of the story, he handed over the editorship to Harrison Ainsworth. In September, 1837, after some misunderstandings, it was agreed to abandon one of the novels promised to Bentley, Dickens undertaking to finish the other, Barnahy Rudge, by November, 1838. In June, 1840, Dickens bought the copyright of Oliver Twist from Bentley for 2,250/.^ and the agreement for Barnahy Budge was cancelled. Dickens then sold Barnahy Budge to Chapman & Hall, receiving 3,000Z. for the use of the copyright until six months after the publication of the last number. The close of this series of agreements freed him from conflicting and harassing responsibilities.

The weekly appearance of Master Humyhrey's Clock had imposed a severe strain. He agreed in August, 1841, to write a new novel in the Pickwick form, for which he was to receive 200Z. a month for twenty numbers, besides three-fourths of the profits. He stipulated, however, in order to secure the much needed rest, that it should not begin until November, 1842. During the previous twelve months he was to receive 1501. a month, to be deducted from his share of the profits. When first planning Master Humphrey's Clock he had talked of visiting America to obtain materials for descriptive papers. The publication of The Old Curiosity Shop had brought him a letter from Washington Irving ; his fame had spread beyond the Atlantic, and he resolved to spend part of the interval before his next book in the United States. He had a severe illness in the autumn of 1841 ; he had to undergo a surgical operation, and was saddened by the sudden death of his wife's brother and mother.

He sailed from Liverpool 4 January, 1842. He reached Boston on 21 January, 1842, and travelled by New York and Philadelphia to Washington and Richmond. Returning to Baltimore, he started for the West, and went by Pittsburg, and Cincinnati, to St. Louis. He returned to Cincinnati, and by the end of April was at the falls of Niagara. He spent a month in Canada, performing in some private theatricals at Montreal, and sailed for England about the end of May. The Americans received him with an enthusiasm which was at times overpowering, but which was soon mixed with less agreeable feelings. Dickens had come prepared to advocate international copyright, though he emphatically denied, in answer to an article by James Spedding in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1843, that he had gone as a ' missionary ' in that cause. His speeches on this subject met with little response, and the general opinion was in favour of continuing to steal. As a staunch abolitionist he was shocked by the sight of slavery, and disgusted by the general desire in the free States to suppress any discussion of the dangerous topic. To the average Englishman the problem seemed a simple question of elementary morality. Dickens's judgment of America was in fact that of the average Englishman, whose radicalism increased his disappointment at the obvious weaknesses of the republic. He differed from ordinary observers only in the decisiveness of his utterances and in the astonishing vivacity of his impressions. The Americans were still provincial enough to fancy that the first impressions of a young novelist were really of importance. Their serious faults and the superficial roughness of the half-settled districts thoroughly disgusted him; and though he strove hard to do justice to their good qualities, it is clear that he returned disillusioned and heartily disliking the country. The feeling is still shown in his antipathy to the Northern States during the war {Letters, ii. 203, 204). In the American Notes, published in October, 1842, he wrote under constraint upon some topics, but gave careful accounts of the excellent institutions which are the terror of the ordinary tourist in America. Four large editions were sold by the end of the year, and the book produced a good deal of resentment. When Macready visited America in the autumn of 1843, Dickens refused to accompany him to Liverpool, thinking that the actor would be injured by any indications of friendship with the author of the Notes and of Martin Chuzzlewit.