Chapter 55

[103]"It matters little now," says Dickens, after describing this incident in one of his minor writings, "for coaches of all colours are alike to poor Kindheart, and he rests far north of the little cemetery with the cypress trees, by the city walls where the Mediterranean is so beautiful." What was said on a former page (ante, 182) may here be completed by a couple of stories told to Dickens by Mr. Walton, suggestive strongly of the comment that it required indeed a kind heart and many attractive qualities (which undoubtedly Fletcher possessed) to render tolerable such eccentricities. Dickens made one of these stories wonderfully amusing. It related the introduction by Fletcher of an unknown Englishman to the marble-merchant's house; the stay there of the Englishman, unasked, for ten days; and finally the walking off of the Englishman in a shirt, pair of stockings, neckcloth, pocket-handkerchief, and other etceteras belonging to Mr. Walton, which never reappeared after that hour. On another occasion, Fletcher confessed to Mr. Walton his having given a bill to a man in Carrara for £30; and the marble-merchant having asked, "And pray, Fletcher, have you arranged to meet it when it falls due?" Fletcher at once replied, "Yes," and to the marble-merchant's farther enquiry "how?" added, in his politest manner, "I have arranged to blow my brains out the day before!" The poor fellow did afterwards almost as much self-violence without intending it, dying of fever caught in night-wanderings through Liverpool half-clothed amid storms of rain.[104]Sydney died on the 22nd of February ('45), in his 77th year.[105]A remark on this, made in my reply, elicited what follows in a letter during his travel home: "Odd enough that remark of yours. I had been wondering at Rome that Juvenal (which I have been always lugging out of a bag, on all occasions) never used the fire-flies for an illustration. But even now, they are only partially seen; and no where I believe in such enormous numbers as on the Mediterranean coast-road, between Genoa and Spezzia. I will ascertain for curiosity's sake, whether there are any at this time in Rome, or between it and the country-house of Mæcenas—on the ground of Horace's journey. I know there is a place on the French side of Genoa, where they begin at a particular boundary-line, and are never seen beyond it. . . . All wild to see you at Brussels! What a meeting we will have, please God!"[106]Count d'Orsay's note about Roche, replying to Dickens's recommendation of him at his return, has touches of the pleasantry, wit, and kindliness that gave such a wonderful fascination to its writer. "Gore House, 6 July, 1845.Mon cher Dickens, Nous sommes enchantés de votre retour. Voici, thank God, Devonshire Place ressuscité. Venez luncheoner demain à 1 heure, et amenez notre brave ami Forster. J'attends la perle fine des couriers. Vous l'immortalisez par ce certificat—la difficulté sera de trouver un maître digne de lui. J'essayerai de tout mon cœur. La Reine devroit le prendre pour aller en Saxe Gotha, car je suis convaincu qu'il est assez intelligent pour pouvoir découvrir ce Royaume. Gore House vous envoye un cargo d'amitiés des plus sincères. Donnez de ma part 100,000 kind regards à Madame Dickens. Toujours votre affectionné, CeD'Orsay. J'ai vu le courier, c'est le tableau de l'honnêteté, et de la bonne humeur. Don't forget to be here at one to-morrow, with Forster."[107]"Look here! Enclosed are two packets—a large one and a small one. The small one, read first. It contains Stanny's renunciation as an actor!!! After receiving it, at dinner time to-day" (22nd of August), "I gave my brains a shake, and thought of George Cruikshank. After much shaking, I made up the big packet, wherein I have put the case in the artfullest manner. R-r-r-r-ead it! as a certain Captain whom you know observes." The great artist was not for that time procurable, having engagements away from London, and Mr. Dudley Costello was substituted; Stanfield taking off the edge of his desertion as an actor by doing valuable work in management and scenery.[108]Characteristic glimpse of this Broadstairs holiday is afforded by a letter of the 19th of August 1845. "Perhaps it is a fair specimen of the odd adventures which befall the inimitable, that the cab in which the children and the luggage were (I and my womankind being in the other) got its shafts broken in the city, last Friday morning, through the horse stumbling on the greasy pavement;and was drawn to the wharf (about a mile) by a stout man, amid such frightful howlings and derisive yellings on the part of an infuriated populace, as I never heard before. Conceive the man in the broken shafts with his back towards the cab; all the children looking out of the windows; and the muddy portmanteaus and so forth (which were all tumbled down when the horse fell) tottering and nodding on the box! The best of it was, thatourcabman, being an intimate friend of the damaged cabman, insisted on keeping him company; and proceeded at a solemn walk, in front of the procession; thereby securing to me a liberal share of the popular curiosity and congratulation. . . . Everything here at Broadstairs is the same as of old. I have walked 20 miles a day since I came down, and I went to a circus at Ramsgate on Saturday night, whereMazeppawas played in three long acts without an H in it: as if for a wager. Evven, and edds, and errors, and ands, were as plentiful as blackberries; but the letter H was neither whispered in Evven, nor muttered in Ell, nor permitted to dwell in any form on the confines of the sawdust." With this I will couple another theatrical experience of this holiday, when he saw a Giant played by a village comedian with a quite Gargantuesque felicity, and singled out for my admiration his fine manner of sitting down to a hot supper (of children), with the self-lauding exalting remark, by way of grace, "How pleasant is a quiet conscience and an approving mind!"[109]"We have hardly seen a cloud in the sky since you and I parted at Ramsgate, and the heat has been extraordinary."[110]"The green woods and green shades about here," he says in another letter, "are more like Cobham in Kent, than anything we dream of at the foot of the Alpine passes."[111]To these the heat interposed occasional difficulties. "Setting off last night" (5th of July) "at six o'clock, in accordance with my usual custom, for a long walk, I was really quite floored when I got to the top of a long steep hill leading out of the town—the same by which we entered it. I believe the great heats, however, seldom last more than a week at a time; there are always very long twilights, and very delicious evenings; and now that there is moonlight, the nights are wonderful. The peacefulness and grandeur of the Mountains and the Lake are indescribable. There comes a rush of sweet smells with the morning air too, which is quite peculiar to the country."[112]"One of her brothers by the bye, now dead, had large property in Ireland—all Nenagh, and the country about; and Cerjat told me, as we were talking about one thing and another, that when he went over there for some months to arrange the widow's affairs, he procured a copy of the curse which had been read at the altar by the parish priest of Nenagh, against any of the flock who didn't subscribe to the O'Connell tribute."[113]In a note may be preserved another passage from the same letter. "I have been queer and had trembling legs for the last week. But it has been almost impossible to sleep at night. There is a breeze to-day (25th of July) and I hope another storm is coming up. . . . There is a theatre here; and whenever a troop of players pass through the town, they halt for a night and act. On the day of our tremendous dinner party of eight, there was an infant phenomenon; whom I should otherwise have seen. Last night there was a Vaudeville company; and Charley, Roche, and Anne went. The Brave reports the performances to have resembled Greenwich Fair. . . . There are some Promenade Concerts in the open air in progress now: but as they are just above one part of our garden we don't go: merely sitting outside the door instead, and hearing it all where we are. . . . Mont Blanc has been very plain lately. One heap of snow. A Frenchman got to the top, the other day."[114]". . . Ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. . . ."[115]This was an abstract, in plain language for the use of his children, of the narrative in the Four Gospels. Allusion was made, shortly after his death, to the existence of such a manuscript, with expression of a wish that it might be published; but nothing would have shocked himself so much as any suggestion of that kind. The little piece was of a peculiarly private character, written for his children, and exclusively and strictly for their use only.[116]So he described it. "I do not think," he adds, "we could have fallen on better society. It is a small circle certainly, but quite large enough. The Watsons improve very much on acquaintance. Everybody is very well informed; and we are all as social and friendly as people can be, and very merry. We play whist with great dignity and gravity sometimes, interrupted only by the occasional facetiousness of theinimitable."[117]"When it is very hot, it is hotter than in Italy. The over-hanging roofs of the houses, and the quantity of wood employed in their construction (where they use tile and brick in Italy), render them perfect forcing-houses. The walls and floors, hot to the hand all the night through, interfere with sleep; and thunder is almost always booming and rumbling among the mountains." Besides this, though there were no mosquitoes as in Genoa, there was at first a plague of flies, more distressing even than at Albaro. "They cover everything eatable, fall into everything drinkable, stagger into the wet ink of newly-written words and make tracks on the writing paper, clog their legs in the lather on your chin while you are shaving in the morning, and drive you frantic at any time when there is daylight if you fall asleep."[118]His preceding letter had sketched his landlord for me. . . . "There was an annual child's fête at the Signal the other night: given by the town. It was beautiful to see perhaps a hundred couple of children dancing in an immense ring in a green wood. Our three eldest were among them, presided over by my landlord, who was 18 years in the English navy, and is the Sous Prefet of the town—a very good fellow indeed; quite an Englishman. Our landlady, nearly twice his age, used to keep the Inn (a famous one) at Zurich: and having made £50,000 bestowed it on a young husband. She might have done worse."[119]The close of this letter sent family remembrances in characteristic form. "Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Sampson Brass, commend themselves unto your Honour's loving remembrance." The last but one, who continued long to bear the name, was Frank; the last, who very soon will be found to have another, was Alfred.[120]The life of Paul was nevertheless prolonged to the fifth number.[121]The mathematical-instrument-maker, who Mr. Taine describes as a marine store dealer.[122]Poor fellow! he had latent disease of the heart, which developed itself rapidly on Dickens's return to England.[123]Out of the excitements consequent on the public festivities arose some domestic inconveniences. I will give one of them. "Fanchette the cook, distracted by the forthcoming fête, madly refused to buy a duck yesterday as ordered by the Brave, and a battle of life ensued between those two powers. The Brave is of opinion that 'datter woman have went mad.' But she seems calm to-day; and I suppose won't poison the family. . . ."[124]Where he makes remark also on a class of offences which are still most inadequately punished: "I hope you will follow up your idea about the defective state of the law in reference to women, by some remarks on the inadequate punishment of that ruffian flippantly called by the liners the Wholesale Matrimonial Speculator. My opinion is, that in any well-ordered state of society, and advanced spirit of social jurisprudence, he would have been flogged more than once (privately), and certainly sentenced to transportation for no less a term than the rest of his life. Surely the man who threw the woman out of window was no worse, if so bad."[125]Ten days before there had been a visit from Mr. Ainsworth and his daughters on their way to Geneva. "I breakfasted with him at the hotel Gibbon next morning and they dined here afterwards, and we walked about all day, talking of our old days at Kensal-lodge." The same letter told me: "We had a regatta at Ouchy the other day, mainly supported by the contributions of the English handfull. It concluded with a rowing-match by women, which was very funny. I wish you could have seen Roche appear on the Lake, rowing, in an immense boat, Cook, Anne, two nurses, Katey, Mamey, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Baby; no boatmen or other degrading assistance; and all sorts of Swiss tubs splashing about them . . . Senior is coming here to-morrow, I believe, with his wife; and they talk of Brunel and his wife as on their way. We dine at Haldimand's to meet Senior—which solitary and most interesting piece of intelligence is all the news I know of . . . Take care you don't back out of your Paris engagement; but that we really do have (please God) some happy hours there. Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Baby, send loves. . . . I am all anxiety and fever to know what we startDombeywith!"[126]This was the fourth Baron Vernon, who succeeded to the title in 1829, and died seven years after the date of Dickens's description, in his 74th year.[127]Writing on Sunday he had said: "I hope to finish the second number to-morrow, and to send it off bodily by Tuesday's post. On Wednesday I purpose, please God, beginning theBattle of Life. I shall peg away at that, without turning aside toDombeyagain; andifI can only do it within the month!" I had to warn him, on receiving these intimations, that he was trying too much.[128]The storm of rain formerly mentioned by him had not been repeated, but the weather had become unsettled, and he thus referred to the rainfall which made that summer so disastrous in England. "What a storm that must have been in London! I wish we could get something like it, here. . . . It is thundering while I write, but I fear it don't look black enough for a clearance. The echoes in the mountains are of such a stupendous sort, that a peal of thunder five or ten minutes long, is here the commonest of circumstances. . . ." That was early in August, and at the close of the month he wrote: "I forgot to tell you that yesterday week, at half-past 7 in the morning, we had a smart shock of an earthquake, lasting, perhaps, a quarter of a minute. It awoke me in bed. The sensation was so curious and unlike any other, that I called out at the top of my voice I was sure it was an earthquake."[129]"I may tell you," he wrote to me from Paris at the end of November, "now it is all over. I don't know whether it was the hot summer, or the anxiety of the two new books coupled with D. N. remembrances and reminders, but I was in that state in Switzerland, when my spirits sunk so, I felt myself in serious danger. Yet I had little pain in my side; excepting that time at Genoa I have hardly had any since poor Mary died, when it came on so badly; and I walked my fifteen miles a day constantly, at a great pace."[130]It had also the mention of another floating fancy for the weekly periodical which was still and always present to his mind, and which settled down at last, as the reader knows, intoHousehold Words. "As to the Review, I strongly incline to the notion of a kind ofSpectator(Addison's)—very cheap, and pretty frequent. We must have it thoroughly discussed. It would be a great thing to found something. If the mark between a sort ofSpectator, and a different sort ofAthenæum, could be well hit, my belief is that a deal might be done. But it should be something with a marked and distinctive and obvious difference, in its design, from any other existing periodical."[131]Some smaller items of family news were in the same letter. "Mamey and Katey have come out in Parisian dresses, and look very fine. They are not proud, and send their loves. Skittles is cutting teeth, and gets cross towards evening. Frankey is smaller than ever, and Walter very large. Charley in statu quo. Everything is enormously dear. Fuel, stupendously so. In airing the house, we burnt five pounds' worth of firewood in one week!! We mix it with coal now, as we used to do in Italy, and find the fires much warmer. To warm the house thoroughly, this singular habitation requires fires on the ground floor. We burn three. . . ."[132]"I shall bring the Brave, though I have no use for him. He'd die if I didn't."[133]Dickens's first letter after my return described it to me. "Do you remember my writing a letter to the prefet of police about that coachman? I heard no more about it until this very day" (12th of February), "when, at the moment of your letter arriving, Roche put his head in at the door (I was busy writing in the Baronial drawing-room) and said, 'Here is datter cocher!'—Sir, he had been in prison ever since! and being released this morning, was sent by the police to pay back the franc and a half, and to beg pardon, and to get a certificate that he had done so, or he could not go on the stand again! Isn't this admirable? But the culminating point of the story (it could happen with nobody but me) is that hewas drunk when he came!! Not very, but his eye was fixed, and he swayed in his sabots, and smelt of wine, and told Roche incoherently that he wouldn't have done it (committed the offence, that is) if the people hadn't made him. He seemed to be troubled with a phantasmagorial belief that all Paris had gathered round us that night in the Rue St. Honoré, and urged him on with frantic shouts. . . . Snow, frost, and cold. . . . The Duke of Bordeaux is very well, and dines at the Tuileries to-morrow. . . .WhenI have done, I will write you a brilliant letter. . . . Loves from all. . . . Your blue and golden bed looks desolate." The allusion to the Duc de Bordeaux was to remind me pleasantly of a slip of his own during our talk with Chateaubriand, when, at a loss to say something interesting to the old royalist, he bethought him to enquire with sympathy when he had last seen the representative of the elder branch of Bourbons, as if he were resident in the city then and there![134]This was on Sunday, the 21st of February, when a party were assembled of whom I think the French Emperor, his cousin the Prince Napoleon, Doctor Quin, Dickens's eldest son, and myself, are now the only survivors. Lady Blessington had received the day before from her brother Major Power, who held a military appointment in Hobart Town, a small oil-painting of a girl's face by the murderer Wainewright (mentioned on a former page as having been seen by us together in Newgate), who was among the convicts there under sentence of transportation, and who had contrived somehow to put the expression of his own wickedness into the portrait of a nice kind-hearted girl. Major Power knew nothing of the man's previous history at this time, and had employed him on the painting out of a sort of charity. As soon as the truth went back, Wainewright was excluded from houses before open to him, and shortly after died very miserably. What Reynolds said of portrait painting, to explain its frequent want of refinement, that a man could only put into a face what he had in himself, was forcibly shown in this incident. The villain's story altogether moved Dickens to the same interest as it had excited in another profound student of humanity (Sir Edward Lytton), and, as will be seen, he also introduced him into one of his later writings.[135]". . . I am horrified to find that the first chapter makesat leasttwo pages less than I had supposed, and I have a terrible apprehension that there will not be copy enough for the number! As it could not possibly come out short, and as there would be no greater possibility of sending to me, in this short month, to supply what may be wanted, I decide—after the first burst of nervousness is gone—to follow this letter by Diligence to-morrow morning. The malle poste is full for days and days. I shall hope to be with you some time on Friday." C. D. to J. F. Paris: Wednesday, 17th February, 1847.[136]"He had already laid his hand upon the bell-rope to convey his usual summons to Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had lighted on it. He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to his table and opened it now—having previously locked the room door—with a well accustomed hand."From beneath a heap of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and read it through."He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances of being reunited and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary all the evening in his cheerless room." From the original MS. ofDombey and Son.[137]"I will now explain that 'Oliver Twist,' the ——, the ——, etc" (naming books by another writer), "were produced in an entirely different manner from what would be considered as the usual course;for I, the Artist, suggested to the Authors of those works the original idea, or subject, for them to write out—furnishing, at the same time, the principal characters and the scenes. And then, as the tale had to be produced in monthly parts, theWriter, orAuthor, and the Artist, had every month to arrange and settle what scenes, or subjects, and characters were to be introduced, and the Author had toweavein such scenes as I wished to represent."—The Artist and the Author, by George Cruikshank, p. 15. (Bell & Daldy: 1872.) The italics are Mr. Cruikshank's own.[138]I take, from his paper of notes for the number, the various names, beginning with that of her real prototype, out of which the name selected came to him at last. "Mrs. Roylance . . . House at the seaside. Mrs. Wrychin. Mrs. Tipchin. Mrs. Alchin. Mrs. Somching. Mrs. Pipchin." See Vol. I. p.55.[139]Some passages may be subjoined from the letter, as it does not appear among those printed by Lord Cockburn. "Edinburgh,14th December, '46. My dear, dear Dickens!—and dearer every day, as you every day give me more pleasure and do me more good! You do not wonder at this style? for you know that I have beenin love with you, ever since Nelly! and I do not care now who knows it. . . . The Dombeys, my dear D! how can I thank you enough for them! The truth, and the delicacy, and the softness and depth of the pathos in that opening death-scene, could only come from one hand; and the exquisite taste which spares all details, and breaks off just when the effect is at its height, is wholly yours. But it is Florence on whom my hopes chiefly repose; and in her I see the promise of another Nelly! though reserved, I hope, for a happier fate, and destined to let us see what agrown-upfemale angel is like. I expect great things, too, from Walter, who begins charmingly, and will be still better I fancy than young Nickleby, to whom as yet he bears most resemblance. I have good hopes too of Susan Nipper, who I think has great capabilities, and whom I trust you do not mean to drop. Dombey is rather too hateful, and strikes me as a mitigated Jonas, without his brutal coarseness and ruffian ferocity. I am quite in the dark as to what you mean to make of Paul, but shall watch his development with interest. About Miss Tox, and her Major, and the Chicks, perhaps I do not care enough. But you know I always grudge the exquisite painting you waste on such portraits. I love the Captain, tho', and his hook, as much as you can wish; and look forward to the future appearances of Carker Junior, with expectations which I know will not be disappointed. . . ."[140]"Edinburgh,31st January, 1847. Oh, my dear, dear Dickens! what a No. 5 you have now given us! I have so cried and sobbed over it last night, and again this morning; and felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since the divine Nelly was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and the ivy, there has been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul, in the summer sunshine of that lofty room. And the long vista that leads us so gently and sadly, and yet so gracefully and winningly, to the plain consummation! Every trait so true, and so touching—and yet lightened by the fearless innocence which goesplayfullyto the brink of the grave, and that pure affection which bears the unstained spirit, on its soft and lambent flash, at once to its source in eternity." . . . In the same letter he told him of his having been reading theBattle of Lifeagain, charmed with its sweet writing and generous sentiments.[141]"Isn't Bunsby good?" I heard Lord Denman call out, with unmistakable glee and enjoyment, over Talfourd's table—I think to Sir Edward Ryan; one of the few survivors of that pleasant dinner party of May 1847.[142]He entered the Royal Navy, and survived his father only a year and eleven months. He was a Lieutenant, at the time of his death from a sharp attack of bronchitis; being then on board the P. and O. steamer "Malta," invalided from his ship the Topaze, and on his way home. He was buried at sea on the 2nd of May, 1872. Poor fellow! He was the smallest in size of all the children, in his manhood reaching only to a little over five feet; and throughout his childhood was never called by any other name than the "Ocean Spectre," from a strange little weird yet most attractive look in his large wondering eyes, very happily caught in a sketch in oils by the good Frank Stone, done at Bonchurch in September 1849 and remaining in his aunt's possession. "Stone has painted," Dickens then wrote to me, "the Ocean Spectre, and made a very pretty little picture of him." It was a strange chance that led his father to invent this playful name for one whom the ocean did indeed take to itself at last.[143]I think it right to place on record here Leigh Hunt's own allusion to the incident (Autobiography, p. 432), though it will be thought to have too favourable a tone, and I could have wished that other names had also found mention in it. But I have already (p.211) stated quite unaffectedly my own opinion of the very modest pretensions of the whole affair, and these kind words of Hunt may standvaleant quantum. "Simultaneous with the latest movement about the pension was one on the part of my admirable friend Dickens and other distinguished men, Forsters and Jerrolds, who, combining kindly purpose with an amateur inclination for the stage, had condescended to show to the public what excellent actors they could have been, had they so pleased,—what excellent actors, indeed, some of them were. . . . They proposed . . . a benefit for myself, . . . and the piece performed on the occasion was Ben Jonson'sEvery Man in his Humour. . . . If anything had been needed to show how men of letters include actors, on the common principle of the greater including the less, these gentlemen would have furnished it. Mr. Dickens's Bobadil had a spirit in it of intellectual apprehension beyond anything the existing stage has shown . . . and Mr. Forster delivered the verses of Ben Jonson with a musical flow and a sense of their grace and beauty unknown, I believe, to the recitation of actors at present. At least I have never heard anything like it since Edmund Kean's." . . . To this may be added some lines from Lord Lytton's prologue spoken at Liverpool, of which I have not been able to find a copy, if indeed it was printed at the time; but the verses come so suddenly and completely back to me, as I am writing after twenty-five years, that in a small way they recall a more interesting effort of memory told me once by Macready. On a Christmas night at Drury Lane there came a necessity to put up theGamester, which he had not played since he was a youth in his father's theatre thirty years before. He went to rehearsal shrinking from the long and heavy study he should have to undergo, when, with the utterance of the opening sentence, the entire words of the part came back, including even a letter which Beverly has to read, and which it is the property-man's business to supply. My lines come back as unexpectedly; but with pleasanter music than any in Mr. Moore's dreary tragedy, as a few will show."Mild amid foes, within a prison free,He comes . . . our grey-hair'd bard of Rimini!Comes with the pomp of memories in his train,Pathos and wit, sweet pleasure and sweet pain!Comes with familiar smile and cordial tone,Our hearths' wise cheerer!—Let us cheer his own!Song links her children with a golden thread,To aid the living bard strides forth the dead.Hark the frank music of the elder age—Ben Jonson's giant tread sounds ringing up the stage!Hail! the large shapes our fathers loved! againWellbred'slightease, and Kitely's jealous pain.Cob shall have sense, and Stephen be polite,Brainworm shall preach, and Bobadil shall fight—Each, here, a merit not his own shall find,AndEvery MantheHumourto be kind."[144]Another, which for many reasons we may regret went also into the limbo of unrealized designs, is sketched in the subjoined (7th of January, 1848). "Mac and I think of going to Ireland for six weeks in the spring, and seeing whether anything is to be done there, in the way of a book? I fancy it might turn out well." The Mac of course is Maclise.[145]"Here we are" (23rd of August) "in the noble old premises; and very nice they look, all things considered. . . . Trifles happen to me which occur to nobody else. My portmanteau 'fell off' a cab last night somewhere between London-bridge and here. It contained on a moderate calculation £70 worth of clothes. I have no shirt to put on, and am obliged to send out to a barber to come and shave me."[146]"Do you see anything to object to in it? I have never had so much difficulty, I think, in setting about any slight thing; for I really didn't know that I had a word to say, and nothing seems to live 'twixt what Ihavesaid and silence. The advantage of it is, that the latter part opens an idea for future prefaces all through the series, and may serve perhaps to make a feature of them." (7th of September, 1847.)[147]From his notes on these matters I may quote. "The Leeds appears to be a very important institution, and I am glad to see that George Stephenson will be there, besides the local lights, inclusive of all the Baineses. They talk at Glasgow of 6,000 people." (26th of November.) "You have got Southey'sHolly Tree. I have not. Put it in your pocket to-day. It occurs to me (up to the eyes in a mass of Glasgow Athenæum papers) that I could quote it with good effect in the North." (24th of December.) "A most brilliant demonstration last night, and I think I never did better. Newspaper reports bad." (29th of December.)[148]"Tremendous distress at Glasgow, and a truly damnable jail, exhibiting the separate system in a most absurd and hideous form. Governor practical and intelligent; very anxious for the associated silent system; and much comforted by my fault-finding." (30th of December.)[149]It would amuse the reader, but occupy too much space, to add to my former illustrations of his managerial troubles; but from an elaborate paper of rules for rehearsals, which I have found in his handwriting, I quote the opening and the close. "Remembering the very imperfect condition of all our plays at present, the general expectation in reference to them, the kind of audience before which they will be presented, and the near approach of the nights of performance, I hope everybody concerned will abide by the following regulations, and will aid in strictly carrying them out." Elaborate are the regulations set forth, but I take only the three last. "Silence, on the stage and in the theatre, to be faithfully observed; the lobbies &c. being always available for conversation. No book to be referred to on the stage; but those who are imperfect to take their words from the prompter. Everyone to act, as nearly as possible, as on the night of performance; everyone to speak out, so as to be audible through the house. And every mistake of exit, entrance, or situation, to be correctedthree timessuccessively." He closes thus. "All who were concerned in the first getting up ofEvery Man in his Humour, and remember how carefully the stage was always kept then, and who have been engaged in the late rehearsals of theMerry Wives, and have experienced the difficulty of getting on, or off: of being heard, or of hearing anybody else: will, I am sure, acknowledge the indispensable necessity of these regulations."[150]I give the sums taken at the several theatres. Haymarket, £319 14s.;Manchester, £266 12s.6d.;Liverpool, £467 6s.6d.;Birmingham, £327 10s., and £262 18s.6d.;Edinburgh, £325 1s.6d.;Glasgow, £471 7s.8d., and (at half the prices of the first night) £210 10s.[151]"Those Rabbits have more nature in them than you commonly find in Rabbits"—the self-commendatory remark of an aspiring animal-painter showing his piece to the most distinguished master in that line—was here in my friend's mind.[152]Mr. Tonson was a small part in the comedy entrusted with much appropriateness to Mr. Charles Knight, whoseAutobiographyhas this allusion to the first performance, which, as Mr. Pepys says, is "pretty to observe." "The actors and the audience were so close together that as Mr. Jacob Tonson sat in Wills's Coffee-house he could have touched with his clouded cane the Duke of Wellington." (iii. 116.)[153]My friend Mr. Shirley Brooks sends me a "characteristic" cutting from an autograph catalogue in which these few lines are given from an early letter in the Doughty-street days. "I always pay my taxes when they won't call any longer, in order to get a bad name in the parish and so escape all honours." It is a touch of character, certainly; but though his motive in later life was the same, his method was not. He attended to the tax-collector, but of any other parochial or political application took no notice whatever.[154]Even in the modest retirement of a note I fear that I shall offend the dignity of history, and of biography, by printing the lines in which this intention was announced to me. They were written "in character;" and the character was that of the "waterman" at the Charing-cross cabstand, first discovered by George Cattermole, whose imitations of him were a delight to Dickens at this time, and adapted themselves in the exuberance of his admiration to every conceivable variety of subject. The painter of the Derby Day will have a fullness of satisfaction in remembering this. "Sloppy" the hero in question, had a friend "Jack" in whom he was supposed to typify his own early and hard experiences before he became a convert to temperance; and Dickens used to point to "Jack" as the justification of himself and Mrs. Gamp for their portentous invention of Mrs. Harris. It is amazing nonsense to repeat; but to hear Cattermole, in the gruff hoarse accents of what seemed to be the remains of a deep bass voice wrapped up in wet straw, repeat the wild proceedings of Jack, was not to be forgotten. "Yes sir, Jack went mad sir, just afore he 'stablished hisself by Sir Robert Peel's-s-s, sir. He was allis a callin' for a pint o' beer sir, and they brings him water sir. Yes sir. And so sir, I sees him dodgin' about one day sir, yes sir, and at last he gits a hopportunity sir and claps a pitch-plaster on the mouth o' th' pump sir, and says he's done for his wust henemy sir. Yes sir. And then they finds him a-sittin' on the top o' the corn-chest sir, yes sir, a crammin' a old pistol with wisps o' hay and horse-beans sir, and swearin' he's a goin' to blow hisself to hattoms, yes sir, but he doesn't, no sir. For I sees him arterwards a lyin' on the straw a manifacktrin' Bengal cheroots out o' corn-chaff sir and swearin' he'd make 'em smoke sir, but they hulloxed him off round by the corner of Drummins's-s-s-s-s-s sir, just afore I come here sir, yes sir. And so you never see'd us together sir, no sir." This was the remarkable dialect in which Dickens wrote from Broadstairs on the 13th of July. "About Saturday sir?—Why sir, I'm a-going toFolkestonea Saturday sir!—not on accounts of the manifacktring of Bengal cheroots as there is there but for the survayin' o' the coast sir. 'Cos you see sir, bein' here sir, and not a finishin' my work sir till to-morrow sir, I couldn't go afore! And if I wos to come home, and not go, and come back agin sir, wy it would be nat'rally a hulloxing of myself sir. Yes sir. Wy sir, I b'lieve that the gent as is a goin' to 'stablish hisself sir, in the autumn, along with me round the corner sir (by Drummins's-s-s-s-s-s bank) is a comin' down to Folkestone Saturday arternoon—Leech by name sir—yes sir—another Jack sir—and if you wos to come down along with him sir by the train as gits to Folkestone twenty minutes arter five, you'd find me a smoking a Bengal cheroot (made of clover-chaff and horse-beans sir) on the platform. You couldn't spend your arternoon better sir. Dover, Sandgate, Herne Bay—they're all to be wisited sir, most probable, till such times as a 'ouse is found sir. Yes sir. Then decide to come sir, and say you will, and do it. I shall be here till arter post time Saturday mornin' sir. Come on then!"Sloppy"His x mark."

[104]Sydney died on the 22nd of February ('45), in his 77th year.

[105]A remark on this, made in my reply, elicited what follows in a letter during his travel home: "Odd enough that remark of yours. I had been wondering at Rome that Juvenal (which I have been always lugging out of a bag, on all occasions) never used the fire-flies for an illustration. But even now, they are only partially seen; and no where I believe in such enormous numbers as on the Mediterranean coast-road, between Genoa and Spezzia. I will ascertain for curiosity's sake, whether there are any at this time in Rome, or between it and the country-house of Mæcenas—on the ground of Horace's journey. I know there is a place on the French side of Genoa, where they begin at a particular boundary-line, and are never seen beyond it. . . . All wild to see you at Brussels! What a meeting we will have, please God!"

[106]Count d'Orsay's note about Roche, replying to Dickens's recommendation of him at his return, has touches of the pleasantry, wit, and kindliness that gave such a wonderful fascination to its writer. "Gore House, 6 July, 1845.Mon cher Dickens, Nous sommes enchantés de votre retour. Voici, thank God, Devonshire Place ressuscité. Venez luncheoner demain à 1 heure, et amenez notre brave ami Forster. J'attends la perle fine des couriers. Vous l'immortalisez par ce certificat—la difficulté sera de trouver un maître digne de lui. J'essayerai de tout mon cœur. La Reine devroit le prendre pour aller en Saxe Gotha, car je suis convaincu qu'il est assez intelligent pour pouvoir découvrir ce Royaume. Gore House vous envoye un cargo d'amitiés des plus sincères. Donnez de ma part 100,000 kind regards à Madame Dickens. Toujours votre affectionné, CeD'Orsay. J'ai vu le courier, c'est le tableau de l'honnêteté, et de la bonne humeur. Don't forget to be here at one to-morrow, with Forster."

[107]"Look here! Enclosed are two packets—a large one and a small one. The small one, read first. It contains Stanny's renunciation as an actor!!! After receiving it, at dinner time to-day" (22nd of August), "I gave my brains a shake, and thought of George Cruikshank. After much shaking, I made up the big packet, wherein I have put the case in the artfullest manner. R-r-r-r-ead it! as a certain Captain whom you know observes." The great artist was not for that time procurable, having engagements away from London, and Mr. Dudley Costello was substituted; Stanfield taking off the edge of his desertion as an actor by doing valuable work in management and scenery.

[108]Characteristic glimpse of this Broadstairs holiday is afforded by a letter of the 19th of August 1845. "Perhaps it is a fair specimen of the odd adventures which befall the inimitable, that the cab in which the children and the luggage were (I and my womankind being in the other) got its shafts broken in the city, last Friday morning, through the horse stumbling on the greasy pavement;and was drawn to the wharf (about a mile) by a stout man, amid such frightful howlings and derisive yellings on the part of an infuriated populace, as I never heard before. Conceive the man in the broken shafts with his back towards the cab; all the children looking out of the windows; and the muddy portmanteaus and so forth (which were all tumbled down when the horse fell) tottering and nodding on the box! The best of it was, thatourcabman, being an intimate friend of the damaged cabman, insisted on keeping him company; and proceeded at a solemn walk, in front of the procession; thereby securing to me a liberal share of the popular curiosity and congratulation. . . . Everything here at Broadstairs is the same as of old. I have walked 20 miles a day since I came down, and I went to a circus at Ramsgate on Saturday night, whereMazeppawas played in three long acts without an H in it: as if for a wager. Evven, and edds, and errors, and ands, were as plentiful as blackberries; but the letter H was neither whispered in Evven, nor muttered in Ell, nor permitted to dwell in any form on the confines of the sawdust." With this I will couple another theatrical experience of this holiday, when he saw a Giant played by a village comedian with a quite Gargantuesque felicity, and singled out for my admiration his fine manner of sitting down to a hot supper (of children), with the self-lauding exalting remark, by way of grace, "How pleasant is a quiet conscience and an approving mind!"

[109]"We have hardly seen a cloud in the sky since you and I parted at Ramsgate, and the heat has been extraordinary."

[110]"The green woods and green shades about here," he says in another letter, "are more like Cobham in Kent, than anything we dream of at the foot of the Alpine passes."

[111]To these the heat interposed occasional difficulties. "Setting off last night" (5th of July) "at six o'clock, in accordance with my usual custom, for a long walk, I was really quite floored when I got to the top of a long steep hill leading out of the town—the same by which we entered it. I believe the great heats, however, seldom last more than a week at a time; there are always very long twilights, and very delicious evenings; and now that there is moonlight, the nights are wonderful. The peacefulness and grandeur of the Mountains and the Lake are indescribable. There comes a rush of sweet smells with the morning air too, which is quite peculiar to the country."

[112]"One of her brothers by the bye, now dead, had large property in Ireland—all Nenagh, and the country about; and Cerjat told me, as we were talking about one thing and another, that when he went over there for some months to arrange the widow's affairs, he procured a copy of the curse which had been read at the altar by the parish priest of Nenagh, against any of the flock who didn't subscribe to the O'Connell tribute."

[113]In a note may be preserved another passage from the same letter. "I have been queer and had trembling legs for the last week. But it has been almost impossible to sleep at night. There is a breeze to-day (25th of July) and I hope another storm is coming up. . . . There is a theatre here; and whenever a troop of players pass through the town, they halt for a night and act. On the day of our tremendous dinner party of eight, there was an infant phenomenon; whom I should otherwise have seen. Last night there was a Vaudeville company; and Charley, Roche, and Anne went. The Brave reports the performances to have resembled Greenwich Fair. . . . There are some Promenade Concerts in the open air in progress now: but as they are just above one part of our garden we don't go: merely sitting outside the door instead, and hearing it all where we are. . . . Mont Blanc has been very plain lately. One heap of snow. A Frenchman got to the top, the other day."

[114]". . . Ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. . . ."

[114]

". . . Ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil. . . ."

[115]This was an abstract, in plain language for the use of his children, of the narrative in the Four Gospels. Allusion was made, shortly after his death, to the existence of such a manuscript, with expression of a wish that it might be published; but nothing would have shocked himself so much as any suggestion of that kind. The little piece was of a peculiarly private character, written for his children, and exclusively and strictly for their use only.

[116]So he described it. "I do not think," he adds, "we could have fallen on better society. It is a small circle certainly, but quite large enough. The Watsons improve very much on acquaintance. Everybody is very well informed; and we are all as social and friendly as people can be, and very merry. We play whist with great dignity and gravity sometimes, interrupted only by the occasional facetiousness of theinimitable."

[117]"When it is very hot, it is hotter than in Italy. The over-hanging roofs of the houses, and the quantity of wood employed in their construction (where they use tile and brick in Italy), render them perfect forcing-houses. The walls and floors, hot to the hand all the night through, interfere with sleep; and thunder is almost always booming and rumbling among the mountains." Besides this, though there were no mosquitoes as in Genoa, there was at first a plague of flies, more distressing even than at Albaro. "They cover everything eatable, fall into everything drinkable, stagger into the wet ink of newly-written words and make tracks on the writing paper, clog their legs in the lather on your chin while you are shaving in the morning, and drive you frantic at any time when there is daylight if you fall asleep."

[118]His preceding letter had sketched his landlord for me. . . . "There was an annual child's fête at the Signal the other night: given by the town. It was beautiful to see perhaps a hundred couple of children dancing in an immense ring in a green wood. Our three eldest were among them, presided over by my landlord, who was 18 years in the English navy, and is the Sous Prefet of the town—a very good fellow indeed; quite an Englishman. Our landlady, nearly twice his age, used to keep the Inn (a famous one) at Zurich: and having made £50,000 bestowed it on a young husband. She might have done worse."

[119]The close of this letter sent family remembrances in characteristic form. "Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Sampson Brass, commend themselves unto your Honour's loving remembrance." The last but one, who continued long to bear the name, was Frank; the last, who very soon will be found to have another, was Alfred.

[120]The life of Paul was nevertheless prolonged to the fifth number.

[121]The mathematical-instrument-maker, who Mr. Taine describes as a marine store dealer.

[122]Poor fellow! he had latent disease of the heart, which developed itself rapidly on Dickens's return to England.

[123]Out of the excitements consequent on the public festivities arose some domestic inconveniences. I will give one of them. "Fanchette the cook, distracted by the forthcoming fête, madly refused to buy a duck yesterday as ordered by the Brave, and a battle of life ensued between those two powers. The Brave is of opinion that 'datter woman have went mad.' But she seems calm to-day; and I suppose won't poison the family. . . ."

[124]Where he makes remark also on a class of offences which are still most inadequately punished: "I hope you will follow up your idea about the defective state of the law in reference to women, by some remarks on the inadequate punishment of that ruffian flippantly called by the liners the Wholesale Matrimonial Speculator. My opinion is, that in any well-ordered state of society, and advanced spirit of social jurisprudence, he would have been flogged more than once (privately), and certainly sentenced to transportation for no less a term than the rest of his life. Surely the man who threw the woman out of window was no worse, if so bad."

[125]Ten days before there had been a visit from Mr. Ainsworth and his daughters on their way to Geneva. "I breakfasted with him at the hotel Gibbon next morning and they dined here afterwards, and we walked about all day, talking of our old days at Kensal-lodge." The same letter told me: "We had a regatta at Ouchy the other day, mainly supported by the contributions of the English handfull. It concluded with a rowing-match by women, which was very funny. I wish you could have seen Roche appear on the Lake, rowing, in an immense boat, Cook, Anne, two nurses, Katey, Mamey, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Baby; no boatmen or other degrading assistance; and all sorts of Swiss tubs splashing about them . . . Senior is coming here to-morrow, I believe, with his wife; and they talk of Brunel and his wife as on their way. We dine at Haldimand's to meet Senior—which solitary and most interesting piece of intelligence is all the news I know of . . . Take care you don't back out of your Paris engagement; but that we really do have (please God) some happy hours there. Kate, Georgy, Mamey, Katey, Charley, Walley, Chickenstalker, and Baby, send loves. . . . I am all anxiety and fever to know what we startDombeywith!"

[126]This was the fourth Baron Vernon, who succeeded to the title in 1829, and died seven years after the date of Dickens's description, in his 74th year.

[127]Writing on Sunday he had said: "I hope to finish the second number to-morrow, and to send it off bodily by Tuesday's post. On Wednesday I purpose, please God, beginning theBattle of Life. I shall peg away at that, without turning aside toDombeyagain; andifI can only do it within the month!" I had to warn him, on receiving these intimations, that he was trying too much.

[128]The storm of rain formerly mentioned by him had not been repeated, but the weather had become unsettled, and he thus referred to the rainfall which made that summer so disastrous in England. "What a storm that must have been in London! I wish we could get something like it, here. . . . It is thundering while I write, but I fear it don't look black enough for a clearance. The echoes in the mountains are of such a stupendous sort, that a peal of thunder five or ten minutes long, is here the commonest of circumstances. . . ." That was early in August, and at the close of the month he wrote: "I forgot to tell you that yesterday week, at half-past 7 in the morning, we had a smart shock of an earthquake, lasting, perhaps, a quarter of a minute. It awoke me in bed. The sensation was so curious and unlike any other, that I called out at the top of my voice I was sure it was an earthquake."

[129]"I may tell you," he wrote to me from Paris at the end of November, "now it is all over. I don't know whether it was the hot summer, or the anxiety of the two new books coupled with D. N. remembrances and reminders, but I was in that state in Switzerland, when my spirits sunk so, I felt myself in serious danger. Yet I had little pain in my side; excepting that time at Genoa I have hardly had any since poor Mary died, when it came on so badly; and I walked my fifteen miles a day constantly, at a great pace."

[130]It had also the mention of another floating fancy for the weekly periodical which was still and always present to his mind, and which settled down at last, as the reader knows, intoHousehold Words. "As to the Review, I strongly incline to the notion of a kind ofSpectator(Addison's)—very cheap, and pretty frequent. We must have it thoroughly discussed. It would be a great thing to found something. If the mark between a sort ofSpectator, and a different sort ofAthenæum, could be well hit, my belief is that a deal might be done. But it should be something with a marked and distinctive and obvious difference, in its design, from any other existing periodical."

[131]Some smaller items of family news were in the same letter. "Mamey and Katey have come out in Parisian dresses, and look very fine. They are not proud, and send their loves. Skittles is cutting teeth, and gets cross towards evening. Frankey is smaller than ever, and Walter very large. Charley in statu quo. Everything is enormously dear. Fuel, stupendously so. In airing the house, we burnt five pounds' worth of firewood in one week!! We mix it with coal now, as we used to do in Italy, and find the fires much warmer. To warm the house thoroughly, this singular habitation requires fires on the ground floor. We burn three. . . ."

[132]"I shall bring the Brave, though I have no use for him. He'd die if I didn't."

[133]Dickens's first letter after my return described it to me. "Do you remember my writing a letter to the prefet of police about that coachman? I heard no more about it until this very day" (12th of February), "when, at the moment of your letter arriving, Roche put his head in at the door (I was busy writing in the Baronial drawing-room) and said, 'Here is datter cocher!'—Sir, he had been in prison ever since! and being released this morning, was sent by the police to pay back the franc and a half, and to beg pardon, and to get a certificate that he had done so, or he could not go on the stand again! Isn't this admirable? But the culminating point of the story (it could happen with nobody but me) is that hewas drunk when he came!! Not very, but his eye was fixed, and he swayed in his sabots, and smelt of wine, and told Roche incoherently that he wouldn't have done it (committed the offence, that is) if the people hadn't made him. He seemed to be troubled with a phantasmagorial belief that all Paris had gathered round us that night in the Rue St. Honoré, and urged him on with frantic shouts. . . . Snow, frost, and cold. . . . The Duke of Bordeaux is very well, and dines at the Tuileries to-morrow. . . .WhenI have done, I will write you a brilliant letter. . . . Loves from all. . . . Your blue and golden bed looks desolate." The allusion to the Duc de Bordeaux was to remind me pleasantly of a slip of his own during our talk with Chateaubriand, when, at a loss to say something interesting to the old royalist, he bethought him to enquire with sympathy when he had last seen the representative of the elder branch of Bourbons, as if he were resident in the city then and there!

[134]This was on Sunday, the 21st of February, when a party were assembled of whom I think the French Emperor, his cousin the Prince Napoleon, Doctor Quin, Dickens's eldest son, and myself, are now the only survivors. Lady Blessington had received the day before from her brother Major Power, who held a military appointment in Hobart Town, a small oil-painting of a girl's face by the murderer Wainewright (mentioned on a former page as having been seen by us together in Newgate), who was among the convicts there under sentence of transportation, and who had contrived somehow to put the expression of his own wickedness into the portrait of a nice kind-hearted girl. Major Power knew nothing of the man's previous history at this time, and had employed him on the painting out of a sort of charity. As soon as the truth went back, Wainewright was excluded from houses before open to him, and shortly after died very miserably. What Reynolds said of portrait painting, to explain its frequent want of refinement, that a man could only put into a face what he had in himself, was forcibly shown in this incident. The villain's story altogether moved Dickens to the same interest as it had excited in another profound student of humanity (Sir Edward Lytton), and, as will be seen, he also introduced him into one of his later writings.

[135]". . . I am horrified to find that the first chapter makesat leasttwo pages less than I had supposed, and I have a terrible apprehension that there will not be copy enough for the number! As it could not possibly come out short, and as there would be no greater possibility of sending to me, in this short month, to supply what may be wanted, I decide—after the first burst of nervousness is gone—to follow this letter by Diligence to-morrow morning. The malle poste is full for days and days. I shall hope to be with you some time on Friday." C. D. to J. F. Paris: Wednesday, 17th February, 1847.

[136]"He had already laid his hand upon the bell-rope to convey his usual summons to Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had lighted on it. He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to his table and opened it now—having previously locked the room door—with a well accustomed hand."From beneath a heap of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and read it through."He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances of being reunited and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary all the evening in his cheerless room." From the original MS. ofDombey and Son.

"From beneath a heap of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and read it through.

"He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances of being reunited and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary all the evening in his cheerless room." From the original MS. ofDombey and Son.

[137]"I will now explain that 'Oliver Twist,' the ——, the ——, etc" (naming books by another writer), "were produced in an entirely different manner from what would be considered as the usual course;for I, the Artist, suggested to the Authors of those works the original idea, or subject, for them to write out—furnishing, at the same time, the principal characters and the scenes. And then, as the tale had to be produced in monthly parts, theWriter, orAuthor, and the Artist, had every month to arrange and settle what scenes, or subjects, and characters were to be introduced, and the Author had toweavein such scenes as I wished to represent."—The Artist and the Author, by George Cruikshank, p. 15. (Bell & Daldy: 1872.) The italics are Mr. Cruikshank's own.

[138]I take, from his paper of notes for the number, the various names, beginning with that of her real prototype, out of which the name selected came to him at last. "Mrs. Roylance . . . House at the seaside. Mrs. Wrychin. Mrs. Tipchin. Mrs. Alchin. Mrs. Somching. Mrs. Pipchin." See Vol. I. p.55.

[139]Some passages may be subjoined from the letter, as it does not appear among those printed by Lord Cockburn. "Edinburgh,14th December, '46. My dear, dear Dickens!—and dearer every day, as you every day give me more pleasure and do me more good! You do not wonder at this style? for you know that I have beenin love with you, ever since Nelly! and I do not care now who knows it. . . . The Dombeys, my dear D! how can I thank you enough for them! The truth, and the delicacy, and the softness and depth of the pathos in that opening death-scene, could only come from one hand; and the exquisite taste which spares all details, and breaks off just when the effect is at its height, is wholly yours. But it is Florence on whom my hopes chiefly repose; and in her I see the promise of another Nelly! though reserved, I hope, for a happier fate, and destined to let us see what agrown-upfemale angel is like. I expect great things, too, from Walter, who begins charmingly, and will be still better I fancy than young Nickleby, to whom as yet he bears most resemblance. I have good hopes too of Susan Nipper, who I think has great capabilities, and whom I trust you do not mean to drop. Dombey is rather too hateful, and strikes me as a mitigated Jonas, without his brutal coarseness and ruffian ferocity. I am quite in the dark as to what you mean to make of Paul, but shall watch his development with interest. About Miss Tox, and her Major, and the Chicks, perhaps I do not care enough. But you know I always grudge the exquisite painting you waste on such portraits. I love the Captain, tho', and his hook, as much as you can wish; and look forward to the future appearances of Carker Junior, with expectations which I know will not be disappointed. . . ."

[140]"Edinburgh,31st January, 1847. Oh, my dear, dear Dickens! what a No. 5 you have now given us! I have so cried and sobbed over it last night, and again this morning; and felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed them; and I never can bless and love you enough. Since the divine Nelly was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and the ivy, there has been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet Paul, in the summer sunshine of that lofty room. And the long vista that leads us so gently and sadly, and yet so gracefully and winningly, to the plain consummation! Every trait so true, and so touching—and yet lightened by the fearless innocence which goesplayfullyto the brink of the grave, and that pure affection which bears the unstained spirit, on its soft and lambent flash, at once to its source in eternity." . . . In the same letter he told him of his having been reading theBattle of Lifeagain, charmed with its sweet writing and generous sentiments.

[141]"Isn't Bunsby good?" I heard Lord Denman call out, with unmistakable glee and enjoyment, over Talfourd's table—I think to Sir Edward Ryan; one of the few survivors of that pleasant dinner party of May 1847.

[142]He entered the Royal Navy, and survived his father only a year and eleven months. He was a Lieutenant, at the time of his death from a sharp attack of bronchitis; being then on board the P. and O. steamer "Malta," invalided from his ship the Topaze, and on his way home. He was buried at sea on the 2nd of May, 1872. Poor fellow! He was the smallest in size of all the children, in his manhood reaching only to a little over five feet; and throughout his childhood was never called by any other name than the "Ocean Spectre," from a strange little weird yet most attractive look in his large wondering eyes, very happily caught in a sketch in oils by the good Frank Stone, done at Bonchurch in September 1849 and remaining in his aunt's possession. "Stone has painted," Dickens then wrote to me, "the Ocean Spectre, and made a very pretty little picture of him." It was a strange chance that led his father to invent this playful name for one whom the ocean did indeed take to itself at last.

[143]I think it right to place on record here Leigh Hunt's own allusion to the incident (Autobiography, p. 432), though it will be thought to have too favourable a tone, and I could have wished that other names had also found mention in it. But I have already (p.211) stated quite unaffectedly my own opinion of the very modest pretensions of the whole affair, and these kind words of Hunt may standvaleant quantum. "Simultaneous with the latest movement about the pension was one on the part of my admirable friend Dickens and other distinguished men, Forsters and Jerrolds, who, combining kindly purpose with an amateur inclination for the stage, had condescended to show to the public what excellent actors they could have been, had they so pleased,—what excellent actors, indeed, some of them were. . . . They proposed . . . a benefit for myself, . . . and the piece performed on the occasion was Ben Jonson'sEvery Man in his Humour. . . . If anything had been needed to show how men of letters include actors, on the common principle of the greater including the less, these gentlemen would have furnished it. Mr. Dickens's Bobadil had a spirit in it of intellectual apprehension beyond anything the existing stage has shown . . . and Mr. Forster delivered the verses of Ben Jonson with a musical flow and a sense of their grace and beauty unknown, I believe, to the recitation of actors at present. At least I have never heard anything like it since Edmund Kean's." . . . To this may be added some lines from Lord Lytton's prologue spoken at Liverpool, of which I have not been able to find a copy, if indeed it was printed at the time; but the verses come so suddenly and completely back to me, as I am writing after twenty-five years, that in a small way they recall a more interesting effort of memory told me once by Macready. On a Christmas night at Drury Lane there came a necessity to put up theGamester, which he had not played since he was a youth in his father's theatre thirty years before. He went to rehearsal shrinking from the long and heavy study he should have to undergo, when, with the utterance of the opening sentence, the entire words of the part came back, including even a letter which Beverly has to read, and which it is the property-man's business to supply. My lines come back as unexpectedly; but with pleasanter music than any in Mr. Moore's dreary tragedy, as a few will show."Mild amid foes, within a prison free,He comes . . . our grey-hair'd bard of Rimini!Comes with the pomp of memories in his train,Pathos and wit, sweet pleasure and sweet pain!Comes with familiar smile and cordial tone,Our hearths' wise cheerer!—Let us cheer his own!Song links her children with a golden thread,To aid the living bard strides forth the dead.Hark the frank music of the elder age—Ben Jonson's giant tread sounds ringing up the stage!Hail! the large shapes our fathers loved! againWellbred'slightease, and Kitely's jealous pain.Cob shall have sense, and Stephen be polite,Brainworm shall preach, and Bobadil shall fight—Each, here, a merit not his own shall find,AndEvery MantheHumourto be kind."

"Mild amid foes, within a prison free,He comes . . . our grey-hair'd bard of Rimini!Comes with the pomp of memories in his train,Pathos and wit, sweet pleasure and sweet pain!Comes with familiar smile and cordial tone,Our hearths' wise cheerer!—Let us cheer his own!Song links her children with a golden thread,To aid the living bard strides forth the dead.Hark the frank music of the elder age—Ben Jonson's giant tread sounds ringing up the stage!Hail! the large shapes our fathers loved! againWellbred'slightease, and Kitely's jealous pain.Cob shall have sense, and Stephen be polite,Brainworm shall preach, and Bobadil shall fight—Each, here, a merit not his own shall find,AndEvery MantheHumourto be kind."

[144]Another, which for many reasons we may regret went also into the limbo of unrealized designs, is sketched in the subjoined (7th of January, 1848). "Mac and I think of going to Ireland for six weeks in the spring, and seeing whether anything is to be done there, in the way of a book? I fancy it might turn out well." The Mac of course is Maclise.

[145]"Here we are" (23rd of August) "in the noble old premises; and very nice they look, all things considered. . . . Trifles happen to me which occur to nobody else. My portmanteau 'fell off' a cab last night somewhere between London-bridge and here. It contained on a moderate calculation £70 worth of clothes. I have no shirt to put on, and am obliged to send out to a barber to come and shave me."

[146]"Do you see anything to object to in it? I have never had so much difficulty, I think, in setting about any slight thing; for I really didn't know that I had a word to say, and nothing seems to live 'twixt what Ihavesaid and silence. The advantage of it is, that the latter part opens an idea for future prefaces all through the series, and may serve perhaps to make a feature of them." (7th of September, 1847.)

[147]From his notes on these matters I may quote. "The Leeds appears to be a very important institution, and I am glad to see that George Stephenson will be there, besides the local lights, inclusive of all the Baineses. They talk at Glasgow of 6,000 people." (26th of November.) "You have got Southey'sHolly Tree. I have not. Put it in your pocket to-day. It occurs to me (up to the eyes in a mass of Glasgow Athenæum papers) that I could quote it with good effect in the North." (24th of December.) "A most brilliant demonstration last night, and I think I never did better. Newspaper reports bad." (29th of December.)

[148]"Tremendous distress at Glasgow, and a truly damnable jail, exhibiting the separate system in a most absurd and hideous form. Governor practical and intelligent; very anxious for the associated silent system; and much comforted by my fault-finding." (30th of December.)

[149]It would amuse the reader, but occupy too much space, to add to my former illustrations of his managerial troubles; but from an elaborate paper of rules for rehearsals, which I have found in his handwriting, I quote the opening and the close. "Remembering the very imperfect condition of all our plays at present, the general expectation in reference to them, the kind of audience before which they will be presented, and the near approach of the nights of performance, I hope everybody concerned will abide by the following regulations, and will aid in strictly carrying them out." Elaborate are the regulations set forth, but I take only the three last. "Silence, on the stage and in the theatre, to be faithfully observed; the lobbies &c. being always available for conversation. No book to be referred to on the stage; but those who are imperfect to take their words from the prompter. Everyone to act, as nearly as possible, as on the night of performance; everyone to speak out, so as to be audible through the house. And every mistake of exit, entrance, or situation, to be correctedthree timessuccessively." He closes thus. "All who were concerned in the first getting up ofEvery Man in his Humour, and remember how carefully the stage was always kept then, and who have been engaged in the late rehearsals of theMerry Wives, and have experienced the difficulty of getting on, or off: of being heard, or of hearing anybody else: will, I am sure, acknowledge the indispensable necessity of these regulations."

[150]I give the sums taken at the several theatres. Haymarket, £319 14s.;Manchester, £266 12s.6d.;Liverpool, £467 6s.6d.;Birmingham, £327 10s., and £262 18s.6d.;Edinburgh, £325 1s.6d.;Glasgow, £471 7s.8d., and (at half the prices of the first night) £210 10s.

[151]"Those Rabbits have more nature in them than you commonly find in Rabbits"—the self-commendatory remark of an aspiring animal-painter showing his piece to the most distinguished master in that line—was here in my friend's mind.

[152]Mr. Tonson was a small part in the comedy entrusted with much appropriateness to Mr. Charles Knight, whoseAutobiographyhas this allusion to the first performance, which, as Mr. Pepys says, is "pretty to observe." "The actors and the audience were so close together that as Mr. Jacob Tonson sat in Wills's Coffee-house he could have touched with his clouded cane the Duke of Wellington." (iii. 116.)

[153]My friend Mr. Shirley Brooks sends me a "characteristic" cutting from an autograph catalogue in which these few lines are given from an early letter in the Doughty-street days. "I always pay my taxes when they won't call any longer, in order to get a bad name in the parish and so escape all honours." It is a touch of character, certainly; but though his motive in later life was the same, his method was not. He attended to the tax-collector, but of any other parochial or political application took no notice whatever.

[154]Even in the modest retirement of a note I fear that I shall offend the dignity of history, and of biography, by printing the lines in which this intention was announced to me. They were written "in character;" and the character was that of the "waterman" at the Charing-cross cabstand, first discovered by George Cattermole, whose imitations of him were a delight to Dickens at this time, and adapted themselves in the exuberance of his admiration to every conceivable variety of subject. The painter of the Derby Day will have a fullness of satisfaction in remembering this. "Sloppy" the hero in question, had a friend "Jack" in whom he was supposed to typify his own early and hard experiences before he became a convert to temperance; and Dickens used to point to "Jack" as the justification of himself and Mrs. Gamp for their portentous invention of Mrs. Harris. It is amazing nonsense to repeat; but to hear Cattermole, in the gruff hoarse accents of what seemed to be the remains of a deep bass voice wrapped up in wet straw, repeat the wild proceedings of Jack, was not to be forgotten. "Yes sir, Jack went mad sir, just afore he 'stablished hisself by Sir Robert Peel's-s-s, sir. He was allis a callin' for a pint o' beer sir, and they brings him water sir. Yes sir. And so sir, I sees him dodgin' about one day sir, yes sir, and at last he gits a hopportunity sir and claps a pitch-plaster on the mouth o' th' pump sir, and says he's done for his wust henemy sir. Yes sir. And then they finds him a-sittin' on the top o' the corn-chest sir, yes sir, a crammin' a old pistol with wisps o' hay and horse-beans sir, and swearin' he's a goin' to blow hisself to hattoms, yes sir, but he doesn't, no sir. For I sees him arterwards a lyin' on the straw a manifacktrin' Bengal cheroots out o' corn-chaff sir and swearin' he'd make 'em smoke sir, but they hulloxed him off round by the corner of Drummins's-s-s-s-s-s sir, just afore I come here sir, yes sir. And so you never see'd us together sir, no sir." This was the remarkable dialect in which Dickens wrote from Broadstairs on the 13th of July. "About Saturday sir?—Why sir, I'm a-going toFolkestonea Saturday sir!—not on accounts of the manifacktring of Bengal cheroots as there is there but for the survayin' o' the coast sir. 'Cos you see sir, bein' here sir, and not a finishin' my work sir till to-morrow sir, I couldn't go afore! And if I wos to come home, and not go, and come back agin sir, wy it would be nat'rally a hulloxing of myself sir. Yes sir. Wy sir, I b'lieve that the gent as is a goin' to 'stablish hisself sir, in the autumn, along with me round the corner sir (by Drummins's-s-s-s-s-s bank) is a comin' down to Folkestone Saturday arternoon—Leech by name sir—yes sir—another Jack sir—and if you wos to come down along with him sir by the train as gits to Folkestone twenty minutes arter five, you'd find me a smoking a Bengal cheroot (made of clover-chaff and horse-beans sir) on the platform. You couldn't spend your arternoon better sir. Dover, Sandgate, Herne Bay—they're all to be wisited sir, most probable, till such times as a 'ouse is found sir. Yes sir. Then decide to come sir, and say you will, and do it. I shall be here till arter post time Saturday mornin' sir. Come on then!"Sloppy"His x mark."

"Sloppy"His x mark."

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