Charles Dickens was born at Landport, Portsmouth, on February 7, 1812. At that time his father, Mr. John Dickens, held an office in the Navy Pay Department, the duties of which obliged him to reside alternately at the principal naval stations of England. But on the conclusion of peace in 1815 a considerable reduction was made by Government in this branch of the public service. Mr. John Dickens, among others, was pensioned off, and he removed to London with his wife and children, when his son Charles was hardly four years of age.

No doubt the varied bustling scenes of life witnessed by Charles Dickens in his early years, had an influence on his mind that gave him a taste for observing the manners and mental peculiarities of different classes of people engaged in the active pursuits of life, and quickened a naturally lively perception of the ridiculous, for which he was distinguished even in boyhood.

It is curious to observe how similar opportunities of becoming acquainted practically with life, and the busy actors on its varied scenes, in very early life, appear to influence the minds of thinking and imaginative men in after-years. Goldsmith’s pedestrian excursions on the Continent, Bulwer’s youthful rambles on foot in England, and equestrian expeditions in France, and Maclise’s extensive walks in boyhood over his native county, and the mountains and valleys of Wicklow a little later, were fraught with similar results.

Charles Dickens was intended by his father to be an attorney. Nature and Mr. John Dickens happily differed on that point. London law may have sustained little injury in losing Dickens for “a limb.” English literature would have met with an irreparable loss, had she been deprived of him whom she delights to own as a favourite son.

Dickens, having decided against the law, began his career in “the gallery,” as a reporter on The True Sun; and from the first made himself distinguished and distinguishable among “the corps,” for his ability, promptness, and punctuality.

Remaining for a short term on the staff of this periodical, he seceded to The Mirror of Parliament, which was started with the express object of furnishing verbatim reports of the debates. It only lived, however, for two sessions.

The influence of his father, who on settling in the metropolis, had become connected with the London press, procured for Charles Dickens an appointment as short-hand reporter on the Morning Chronicle. To this period of his life he has made some graceful and interesting allusions in a speech delivered at the Second Anniversary of the Newspaper Press Fund, about five years ago.

It was in The Monthly Magazine of January, 1834, before he had quite attained his twenty-second year, that Charles Dickens made his first appearance in print as a story-teller. [7] Neither the editor of the magazine, nor the readers, nor even the ardent and gratified young author himself (who has described in the preface to the “Pickwick Papers” his sensations on finding his little contribution accepted), then dreamt that he would become in five short years from that time one of the most popular and widely-read of English authors, that his name would shortly become familiar as a household word, and that his praise would be on every tongue on both sides of the Atlantic.

Encouraged by his success, Charles Dickens continued to send sketches in the same vein, and for the next twelve months was a tolerably constant contributor to the Magazine. All, or nearly all, of these little papers were reprinted in the collection of Sketches by Boz; but as it will perhaps be interesting to some of our readers to trace their original appearance in the magazine, we give a list of them here:—

February, 1834,	Horatio Sparkins.
	Marriage a-la-Mode.
April „	The Bloomsbury Christening.
May „	The Boarding-House.
August „	Ibid. (No II.) [8a]
September „	The Goings-on at Bramsby Hall.
October „	The Steam Excursion.
January, 1835.	Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle.
February „	Ib. Chapter Second.

A similar series was afterwards contributed to the evening edition of The Morning Chronicle, [8b] then edited by Mr. John Black, and on which Dickens was engaged as parliamentary reporter.

While writing the “Sketches,” a strong inclination towards the stage induced Mr. Charles Dickens to test his powers as a dramatist, and his first piece, a farce called The Strange Gentleman, was produced at the St. James’s Theatre on the opening night of the season, September 29, 1836. The late Mr. Harley was the hero of the farce, which was received with great favour. This was followed by an opera, called The Village Coquettes, for which Mr. Hullah composed the music, and which was brought out at the same establishment, on Tuesday, December 6, 1836. The quaint humour, unaffected pathos, and graceful lyrics of this production found prompt recognition, and the piece enjoyed a prosperous run. The Village Coquettes took its title from two village girls, Lucy and Rose, led away by vanity, coquetting with men above them in station, and discarding their humble, though worthy lovers. Before, however, it is too late they see their error, and the piece terminates happily. Miss Rainforth and Miss Julia Smith were the heroines, and Mr. Bennet and Mr. Gardner were their betrothed lovers. Braham was the Lord of the Manor, who would have led astray the fair Lucy. There was a capital scene, where he was detected by Lucy’s father, played by Strickland, urging an elopement. Harley had a trifling part in the piece, rendered highly amusing by his admirable acting.

On March 6, 1837, was brought out at the St. James’s Theatre a farce, called Is She His Wife; or, Something Singular, in which Harley played the principal character, Felix Tapkins, a flirting bachelor, and sang a song in the character of Pickwick, “written expressly for him by Boz.”Under the pseudonym of Timothy Sparks Charles Dickens published about this time a wholesome, wise, and cleverly written little pamphlet against Sabbatarianism, in which he cogently and forcibly advocated more liberal views respecting the observance of Sunday than generally obtain in this country. [10]

In March, 1836, appeared the first number of “Pickwick,” with illustrations by Seymour. It was continued in monthly shilling numbers until its completion, and this has been Mr. Dickens’s favourite and usual form of publication ever since. The success and popularity of the work—which, in freshness and vigour, he has never surpassed in his later and maturer writings—were unmistakeable. Several playwrights dramatised it, with more or less success; and a swarm of obscure scribblers flooded the town with imitations and sequels, which, like Avanelleda’s second part of “Don Quixote,” came mostly to grief, and were quickly forgotten.

Before the work had reached its third number, the talented artist who had undertaken the illustrations, and who has immortalised the features of Mr. Pickwick, was unfortunately removed by death, and Mr. Hablot Browne (the well-known Phiz) was chosen to replace him, and continued to illustrate most of Mr. Dickens’s novels for many years after. During the years 1837–1838, Mr. Dickens carried on the editorship of Bentley’s Miscellany, where his novel of “Oliver Twist” (illustrated by George Cruikshank) first appeared. To this magazine, during the time that he conducted it, he also contributed some humorous papers, entitled “Full Report of the Meetings of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything.” But, finding his editorial office irksome, he soon abandoned it.

During his engagement with Mr. Bentley, he edited and partly wrote the “Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” [11] a book now almost forgotten, though not without passages of pathos and humour. Dickens, in the introductory chapter (dated February, 1838), gives the following account of his share in the work:—

“For about a year before his death, Grimaldi was employed in writing a full account of his life and adventures, and as people who write their own lives often find time to extend them to a most inordinate length, it is no wonder that his account of himself was exceedingly voluminous.

“This manuscript was confided to Mr. Thomas Egerton Wilks, to alter and revise, with a view to its publication. While he was thus engaged, Grimaldi died; and Mr. Wilks having, by the commencement of September (1837), concluded his labours, offered the manuscript to Mr. Bentley, by whom it was shortly afterwards purchased.

“The present editor of these volumes has felt it necessary to say thus much in explanation of their origin. His own share in them is stated in a few words. Being much struck by several incidents in the manuscript—such as the description of Grimaldi’s infancy, the burglary, the brother’s return from sea, and many other passages—and thinking that they might be related in a more attractive manner, he accepted a proposal from the publisher to edit the book, and has edited it to the best of his ability, altering its form throughout, and making such other alterations as he conceived would improve the narration of the facts, without any departure from the facts themselves.”

His next work was “Nicholas Nickleby,” published in monthly numbers. The following passage from the original preface, which is only to be found in the old editions, alludes to the great success that attended this story:—

“It only now remains for the writer of these pages, with that feeling of regret with which we leave almost any pursuit that has for a long time occupied us and engaged our thoughts, and which is naturally augmented in such a case as this, when that pursuit has been surrounded by all that could animate and cheer him on—it only now remains for him, before abandoning his task, to bid his readers farewell.”

This was followed by “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” the publication of which, in weekly numbers, with illustrations by Cattermole and Hablot Browne, was commenced in April, 1840. “Master Humphrey’s Clock” comprised the two novels of “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby Rudge,” which are now published in a separate form, stripped of the introductory portion relating to Master Humphrey, and of the intercalary chapters in which Mr. Pickwick and the two Wellers appear again on the scene. It was pleasant to meet once more these familiar humorous creations, and it may be a matter for regret that this portion of the book has been consigned to oblivion. But the author considered that these passages served only to interrupt the continuity of the main story, and they were consequently eliminated.

These three characters (the Wellers and Mr. Pickwick) have all the same raciness and inexhaustible humour in this sequel as in the work in which we were first introduced to them. As the original edition of the work we are alluding to is now somewhat rare, the reader may not be displeased to have a few specimens laid before him. Here is Mr. Weller senior’s opinion of railways:—

“I con-sider,” said Mr. Weller, “that the rail is unconstitootional and an inwaser o’ priwileges, and I should wery much like to know what that ’ere old Carter as once stood up for our liberties and wun ’em too—I should like to know wot he vould say if he wos alive now, to Englishmen being locked up with widders, or with anybody, again their wills. Wot a old Carter would have said, a old Coachman may say, and I as-sert that in that pint o’ view alone, the rail is an inwaser. As to the comfort, vere’s the comfort o’ sittin’ in a harm cheer lookin’ at brick walls or heaps o’ mud, never comin’ to a public house, never seein’ a glass o’ ale, never goin’ through a pike, never meetin’ a change o’ no kind (horses or othervise), but alvays comin’ to a place, ven you come to one at all, the wery picter o’ the last, vith the same p’leesemen standing about, the same blessed old bell a ringin’, the same unfort’nate people standing behind the bars, a waitin’ to be let in; and everythin’ the same except the name, vich is wrote up in the same sized letters as the last name and vith the same colors. As to the honour and dignity o’ travelling vere can that be vithout a coachman; and wot’s the rail to sich coachmen and guards as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a insult? As to the pace, wot sort o’ pace do you think I, Tony Veller, could have kept a coach goin’ at, for five hundred thousand pound a mile, paid in adwance afore the coach was on the road? And as to the ingein—a nasty wheezin’, creaking, gasping, puffin, bustin’ monster, alvays out o’ breath, vith a shiny green and gold back, like a unpleasant beetle in that ’ere gas magnifier—as to the ingein as is alvays a pourin’ out red hot coals at night, and black smoke in the day, the sensiblest thing it does in my opinion, is, ven there’s somethin’ in the vay and it sets up that ’ere frightful scream vich seems to say, ‘Now here’s two hundred and forty passengers in the wery greatest extremity o’ danger, and here’s their two hundred and forty screams in vun!’” [15]

While Mr. Pickwick is listening to Master Humphrey’s story above, the Wellers are entertained by the housekeeper in the kitchen, where they find Mr. Slithers, the barber, to whom Sam Weller, drawing extensively we may suppose upon his lively imagination, relates the following anecdote:—

“I never knew,” said Sam, fixing his eyes in a ruminative manner upon the blushing barber, “I never knew but von o’ your trade, but he wos worth a dozen, and wos indeed dewoted to his callin’!”

“Was he in the easy shaving way, sir,” inquired Mr. Slithers; “or in the cutting and curling line?”

“Both,” replied Sam; “easy shavin’ was his natur, and cuttin’ and curlin’ was his pride and glory. His whole delight wos in his trade. He spent all his money in bears and run in debt for ’em besides, and there they wos a growling avay down in the front cellar all day long, and ineffectooally gnashing their teeth, vile the grease o’ their relations and friends wos being re-tailed in gallipots in the shop above, and the first-floor winder wos ornamented vith their heads; not to speak o’ the dreadful aggrawation it must have been to ’em to see a man alvays a walkin’ up and down the pavement outside, vith the portrait of a bear in his last agonies, and underneath in large letters, ‘Another fine animal wos slaughtered yesterday at Jinkinson’s!’ Hows’ever, there they wos, and there Jinkinson wos, till he wos took wery ill with some inn’ard disorder, lost the use of his legs, and wos confined to his bed, vere he laid a wery long time, but sich wos his pride in his profession even then, that wenever he wos worse than usual, the doctor used to go down stairs and say, ‘Jinkinson’s wery low this mornin’; we must give the bears a stir;’ and as sure as ever they stirred ’em up a bit, and made ’em roar, Jinkinson opens his eyes if he wos ever so bad, calls out, ‘There’s the bears!’ and rewives agin. Vun day the doctor happenin’ to say, ‘I shall look in as usual to-morrow mornin’,’ Jinkinson catches hold of his hand and says, ‘Doctor,’ he says, ‘will you grant me one favor?’ ‘I will, Jinkinson,’ says the doctor. ‘Then, doctor,’ says Jinkinson, ‘vill you come un-shaved, and let me shave you?’ ‘I will,’ says the doctor. ‘God bless you,’ says Jinkinson. Next day the doctor came, and arter he’d been shaved all skilful and reg’lar, he says, ‘Jinkinson,’ he says, ‘it’s wery plain this does you good. Now,’ he says, ‘I’ve got a coachman as has got a beard that it ’d warm your heart to work on, and though the footman,’ he says, ‘hasn’t got much of a beard, still he’s a trying it on vith a pair o’ viskers to that extent, that razors is christian charity. If they take it in turns to mind the carriage wen it’s a waitin’ below,’ he says, ‘wot’s to hinder you from operatin’ on both of ’em ev’ry day as well as upon me? you’ve got six children,’ he says, ‘wot’s to hinder you from shavin’ all their heads, and keepin’ ’em shaved? You’ve got two assistants in the shop down-stairs, wot’s to hinder you from cuttin’ and curlin’ them as often as you like? Do this,’ he says, ‘and you’re a man agin.’ Jinkinson squeedged the doctor’s hand, and begun that wery day; he kept his tools upon the bed, and wenever he felt his-self gettin’ worse, he turned to at vun o’ the children, who wos a runnin’ about the house vith heads like clean Dutch cheeses, and shaved him agin. Vun day the lawyer come to make his vill; all the time he wos a takin’ it down, Jinkinson was secretly a clippin’ avay at his hair vith a large pair of scissors. ‘Wot’s that ’ere snippin’ noise?’ says the lawyer every now and then, ‘it’s like a man havin’ his hair cut.’ ‘It is wery like a man havin’ his hair cut,’ says poor Jinkinson, hidin’ the scissors and lookin’ quite innocent. By the time the lawyer found it out, he was wery nearly bald. Jinkinson was kept alive in this vay for a long time, but at last vun day he has in all the children, vun arter another, shaves each on ’em wery clean, and gives him vun kiss on the crown of his head; then he has in the two assistants, and arter cuttin’ and curlin’ of ’em in the first style of elegance, says he should like to hear the woice o’ the greasiest bear, vich rekvest is immedetly complied with; then he says that he feels wery happy in his mind, and vishes to be left alone; and then he dies, prevously cuttin’ his own hair, and makin’ one flat curl in the wery middle of his forehead.” [18a]

There is a great deal more in the same vein, not unworthy of the “Pickwick Papers.” We must leave the curious reader to find it out, however, for himself.

During the progress of this publication, it seems that certain officious persons, mistaking it for a kind of omnium gatherum, by “several hands,” tendered contributions to its pages, and the author was compelled to issue the following advertisement:

MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK.

Mr. Dickens begs to inform all those Ladies and Gentlemen who have tendered him contributions for this work, and all those who may now or at any future time have it in contemplation to do so, that he cannot avail himself of their obliging offers, as it is written solely by himself, and cannot possibly include any productions from other hands.

This announcement will serve for a final answer to all correspondents, and will render any private communications unnecessary.

After “winding up his Clock,” as he termed it, Dickens resolved to make a tour in the United States. Before he went away, however, some of the most distinguished citizens of Edinburgh gave him a farewell banquet. [18b] He was then only twenty-nine years of age, and this was the first great public recognition of his genius, and the first occasion that was afforded him of displaying his powers as a public speaker. Professor Wilson (Christopher North) presided, and spoke of the young author in the following terms:—

“Our friend has dealt with the common feelings and passions of ordinary men in the common and ordinary paths of life. He has not sought—at least he has not yet sought—to deal with those thoughts and passions that are made conspicuous from afar by the elevated stations of those who experience them. He has mingled in the common walks of life; he has made himself familiar with the lower orders of society. He has not been deterred by the aspect of vice and wickedness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of good in things evil, but has endeavoured by the might of genius to transmute what was base into what is precious as the beaten gold. . . . But I shall be betrayed, if I go on much longer,—which it would be improper for me to do—into something like a critical delineation of the genius of our illustrious guest. I shall not attempt that; but I cannot but express in a few ineffectual words, the delight which every human bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades all his creations. How kind and good a man he is, I need not say; nor what strength of genius he has acquired by that profound sympathy with his fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happiness, or overwhelmed with unfortunate circumstances, but who do not yet sink under their miseries, but trust to their own strength of endurance, to that principle of truth and honour and integrity which is no stranger to the uncultivated bosom, which is found in the lowest abodes in as great strength as in the halls of nobles and the palaces of kings.

“Mr. Dickens is also a satirist. He satirises human life, but he does not satirise it to degrade it. He does not wish to pull down what is high into the neighbourhood of what is low. He does not seek to represent all virtue as a hollow thing, in which no confidence can be placed. He satirises only the selfish, and the hard-hearted, and the cruel; he exposes in a hideous light that principle which, when acted upon, gives a power to men in the lowest grades to carry on a more terrific tyranny than if placed upon thrones. I shall not say—for I do not feel—that our distinguished guest has done full and entire justice to one subject—that he has entirely succeeded where I have no doubt he would be most anxious to succeed—in a full and complete delineation of the female character. But this he has done: he has not endeavoured to represent women as charming merely by the aid of accomplishments, however elegant and graceful. He has not depicted those accomplishments as the essentials of their character, but has spoken of them rather as always inspired by a love of domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by charity, and by hope, which makes them discharge, under the most difficult circumstances, their duties; and which brings over their path in this world some glimpses of the light of heaven. Mr. Dickens may be assured that there is felt for him all over Scotland a sentiment of kindness, affection, admiration and love; and I know for certain that the knowledge of these sentiments must make him happy.”

Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the “Britannia” steam-packet, Captain Hewett, on the 3rd of January, 1842. At Boston, Hartford, and New York, he was received with ovations (Washington Irving on one occasion presiding at a banquet held in his honour), until he was obliged to decline any further appearance in public. During this first visit to America, he made three long and eloquent speeches, which are all given in this volume in extenso. In each of these he referred in an earnest way to the great question of International Copyright, urging upon his Transatlantic friends the necessity of doing right and justice in this matter. He returned to England in the month of June, and a few weeks afterwards addressed the following circular letter to all the principal English authors:—

“1, Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent’s Park,
“7th July, 1842.

“You may perhaps be aware that, during my stay in America, I lost no opportunity of endeavouring to awaken the public mind to a sense of the unjust and iniquitous state of the law in that country, in reference to the wholesale piracy of British works. Having been successful in making the subject one of general discussion in the United States, I carried to Washington, for presentation to Congress by Mr. Clay, a petition from the whole body of American authors, earnestly praying for the enactment of an International Copyright Law. It was signed by Mr. Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Cooper, and every man who has distinguished himself in the literature of America; and has since been referred to a Select Committee of the House of Representatives. To counteract any effect which might be produced by that petition, a meeting was held in Boston—which, you will remember, is the seat and stronghold of Learning and Letters in the United States—at which a memorial against any change in the existing state of things in this respect was agreed to, with but one dissentient voice. This document, which, incredible as it may appear to you, was actually forwarded to Congress and received, deliberately stated that if English authors were invested with any control over the re-publication of their own books, it would be no longer possible for American editors to alter and adapt them (as they do now) to the American taste! This memorial was, without loss of time, replied to by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with the natural indignation of a gentleman, and a man of letters, upon its extraordinary dishonesty. I am satisfied that this brief mention of its tone and spirit is sufficient to impress you with the conviction that it becomes all those who are in any way connected with the literature of England, to take that high stand, to which the nature of their pursuits, and the extent of their sphere of usefulness, justly entitle them, to discourage the upholders of such doctrines by every means in their power, and to hold themselves aloof from the remotest participation in a system, from which the moral sense and honourable feeling of all just men must instinctively recoil.

“For myself, I have resolved that I will never from this time enter into any negotiation with any person for the transmission across the Atlantic of early proofs of anything I may write, and that I will forego all profit derivable from such a source. I do not venture to urge this line of proceeding upon you, but I would beg to suggest, and to lay great stress upon the necessity of observing one other course of action, to which I cannot too emphatically call your attention. The persons who exert themselves to mislead the American public on this question, to put down its discussion, and to suppress and distort the truth in reference to it in every possible way, are (as you may easily suppose) those who have a strong interest in the existing system of piracy and plunder: inasmuch as, so long as it continues, they can gain a very comfortable living out of the brains of other men, while they would find it very difficult to earn bread by the exercise of their own. These are the editors and proprietors of newspapers almost exclusively devoted to the re-publication of popular English works. They are, for the most part, men of very low attainments, and of more than indifferent reputation; and I have frequently seen them, in the same sheet in which they boast of the rapid sale of many thousand copies of an English reprint, coarsely and insolently attacking the author of that very book, and heaping scurrility and slander upon his head. I would therefore entreat you, in the name of the honourable pursuit with which you are so intimately connected, never to hold correspondence with any of these men, and never to negotiate with them for the sale of early proofs of any work over which you have control, but to treat on all occasions with some respectable American publishing house, and with such an establishment only. Our common interest in this subject, and my advocacy of it, single-handed, on every occasion that has presented itself during my absence from Europe, form my excuse for addressing you.

“I am, &c.,
“Charles Dickens.”

By his “American Notes,” and by some of the scenes in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” Dickens gave for a time great offence to the Americans, though he only satirised some of their foibles (with just a spice of piquante exaggeration), as he had ours at home. Let the reader hear what two candid Americans have recently written on this subject:—

“The ‘American Notes’ are weak, and unworthy of their author; but the American sketches in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ are among the cleverest and truest things he has ever written. The satire was richly deserved, well applied, and has done a great deal of good. To claim that it was mere burlesque and exaggeration, is sheer nonsense, and it is highly disingenuous to deny the existence of the absurdities upon which it was founded. Moreover, the popular implication that there is really nothing now in the country justly to provoke a smile—to urge with so much complacency that we have changed all that—argues the continued existence of not a little of the same thin-skinned tetchiness, the same inability ‘to see ourselves as others see us,’ which made us so legitimate a target before.”

“As for certain American portraits painted in Martin Chuzzlewit,” says an American lady, [24] “I should as soon think of objecting to them as I should think of objecting to any other discovery in natural history. To deny the existence of Elijah Pogram, Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Mrs. Hominy, and Miss Codger, is to deny facts somewhat exaggerated, that are patent to any keen observer who has ever travelled through the United States. The character of Elijah Pogram is so well known as to constantly figure in the world of illustration; and we can well afford to laugh at foibles of native growth when Mr. Dickens devotes the greater part of this same novel to the exposition of English vice and selfishness.”

The following letter, referring to Martin Chuzzlewit, which was then in course of publication, was addressed by Mr. Dickens to a friend in January, 1844:—

“Devonshire Terrace,
“January 2d, 1844.

My dear Sir,

“That is a very horrible case you tell me of. I would to God I could get at the parental heart of —, in which event I would so scarify it, that he should writhe again. But if I were to put such a father as he into a book, all the fathers going (and especially the bad ones) would hold up their hands and protest against the unnatural caricature. I find that a great many people (particularly those who might have sat for the character) consider even Mr. Pecksniff a grotesque impossibility, and Mrs. Nickleby herself, sitting bodily before me in a solid chair, once asked me whether I really believed there ever was such a woman.

“So — reviewing his own case, would not believe in Jonas Chuzzlewit. ‘I like Oliver Twist,’ says —, ‘for I am fond of children. But the book is unnatural, for who would think of being cruel to poor little Oliver Twist!’

“Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my mind, and if I can hit him between the eyes so that he shall stagger more than you or I have done this Christmas under the combined effects of punch and turkey, I will.

“Thank you cordially for your note. Excuse this scrap of paper. I thought it was a whole sheet until I turned it over.

“My dear Sir,
“Faithfully yours,
“Charles Dickens.”

To a collection of Sketches and Tales by a Working Man, published in 1844, [26] Charles Dickens was induced to contribute a preface, from which we select the following passages:—

“I do not recommend it as a book of surpassing originality or transcendent merit . . . I do not claim to have discovered, in humble life, an extraordinary and brilliant genius. I cannot charge mankind in general with having entered into a conspiracy to neglect the author of this volume, or to leave him pining in obscurity. I have not the smallest intention of comparing him with Burns, the exciseman; or with Bloomfield, the shoemaker; or with Ebenezer Elliott, the worker in iron; or with James Hogg, the shepherd. I see no reason to be hot, or bitter, or lowering, or sarcastic, or indignant, or fierce, or sour, or sharp, in his behalf. I have nothing to rail at; nothing to exalt; nothing to flourish in the face of a stony-hearted world; and have but a very short and simple story to tell.

“John Overs is, as is set forth in the title-page, a working man. A man who earns his weekly wages (or who did when he was strong enough) by plying of the hammer, plane, and chisel. He became known to me nearly six years ago, when he sent me some songs, appropriate to the different months of the year, with a letter, stating under what circumstances they had been composed, and in what manner he was occupied from morning until night. I was just then relinquishing the conduct of a monthly periodical, [27] or I would gladly have published them. As it was, I returned them to him, with a private expression of the interest I felt in such productions. They were afterwards accepted, with much readiness and consideration, by Mr. Tait, of Edinburgh, and were printed in his Magazine.

“Finding, after some further correspondence with my new friend, that his authorship had not ceased with his verses, but that he still occupied his leisure moments in writing, I took occasion to remonstrate with him seriously against his pursuing that course. I told him, his persistence in his new calling made me uneasy; and I advised him to abandon it as strongly as I could.

“In answer to this dissuasion of mine, he wrote me as manly and straightforward, but withal, as modest a letter, as ever I read in my life. He explained to me how limited his ambition was: soaring no higher than the establishment of his wife in some light business, and the better education of his children. He set before me the difference between his evening and holiday studies, such as they were; and the having no better resource than an ale-house or a skittle-ground. He told me how every small addition to his stock of knowledge made his Sunday walks the pleasanter, the hedge-flowers sweeter, everything more full of interest and meaning to him.

* * * * *

“He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the man who came into my little study for the first time, half-a-dozen years ago, after the correspondence I have mentioned. He has been very ill for a long period; his disease is a severe and wasting affection of the lungs, which has incapacitated him these many months for every kind of occupation. ‘If I could only do a hard day’s work,’ he said to me the other day, ‘how happy I should be.’

“Having these papers by him, amongst others, he bethought himself that, if he could get a bookseller to purchase them for publication in a volume, they would enable him to make some temporary provision for his sick wife, and very young family. We talked the matter over together, and that it might be easier of accomplishment I promised him that I would write an introduction to his book.

“I would to Heaven that I could do him better service! I would to Heaven it were an introduction to a long, and vigorous, and useful life! But Hope will not trim his lamp the less brightly for him and his, because of this impulse to their struggling fortunes, and trust me, reader, they deserve her light, and need it sorely.

“He has inscribed this book to one [28] whose skill will help him, under Providence, in all that human skill can do. [29] To one who never could have recognised in any potentate on earth a higher claim to constant kindness and attention than he has recognized in him. * * * *”

The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with which during the last fifteen years the public have become so familiar, was commenced by Mr. Dickens in December, 1843, with A Christmas Carol in Prose, illustrated by John Leech. What Jeffrey, what Sydney Smith, what Jerrold, what Thackeray thought and wrote about this little story is well known. “Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens,” wrote Jeffrey, “and may it always be as full and as light as it is kind, and a fountain of goodness to all within reach of its beatings. We are all charmed with your Carol; chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim in life and in death almost as sweet and touching as Nelly. You may be sure you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive acts of benevolence by this little publication than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, 1842.”

“It is the work,” writes Thackeray, [30] “of the master of all the English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those half-dozen years, the store of happy hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of those years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? Since the days when the Spectator was produced by a man of kindred mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as these?

“Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said by way of criticism, ‘God bless him!’ * * * As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that young gentleman about which a man should hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ‘God bless him!’ What a feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap.”

During six years did Mr. Dickens continue to issue at Christmas these little volumes: “A Christmas Carol” (December, 1843); “The Chimes” (December, 1844); “The Cricket on the Hearth” (December, 1845); “The Battle of Life” (December, 1846); “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain” (December, 1848). [31]

Christmas stories are now grown so much the fashion that, whenever the season of holly and mistletoe comes round they greet us at every turn, forcing themselves upon our notice through every species of whimsical and enticing embellishment. Why is it that, amidst such a satiety of novelties we turn again and again, with an interest as keen as ever, to a perusal of the pages where little Dot Peerybingle chirps as brightly as the cricket on her own hearth, where Trotty Veck listens to the voices of the chimes, striving to comprehend what it is they say to him, and where old Scrooge’s heart is softened by his ghostly visitants? It is because Charles Dickens has made such a study of that human nature we all possess in common that he is able to strike with a practised hand upon the chords of our hearts, and draw forth harmony that vibrates from soul to soul.

It is not, however, our intention here, to follow Mr. Dickens through the whole of his long and honourable literary career, far less to undertake the superfluous task of extolling the numerous and brilliant list of writings that have followed each other in rapid and welcome succession from his indefatigable pen. All that remains for us to do now, is to notice briefly two very grave charges that have been made against the general tendency of his writings, and to bring forward some evidence in refutation of them.

These two charges are, 1, a wilful perversion of facts in describing the political and social condition of our time; 2, an irreverence for and ridicule of sacred things and persons, which (say the objectors) infuses a subtle poison through the whole of his works, and unsettles the belief of the young. We shall take these charges one at a time.

In some of his later novels, such as “Bleak House,” and “Little Dorrit,” in which he has endeavoured to grapple with the great social and political problems of the age, certain critics have accused him of exaggeration, and even of a wilful perversion of facts. Against their opinion we are pleased to be able to set that of so good an authority as the author of “Modern Painters:”—

“The essential value and truth of Dickens’s writings,” says Mr. Ruskin, “have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. Unwisely, because Dickens’s caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high national importance, such as that which he handled in ‘Hard Times,’ that he would use severer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects the greatest he has written,) is with many persons seriously diminished, because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not lose the use of Dickens’s wit and insight because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially ‘Hard Times,’ should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told.” [33]

Secondly, Mr. Dickens is accused of an irreverence for, and unseemly ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive reader of Dickens will have observed that he is not much in the habit of quoting from, or alluding to the writings of others; but that when he does quote or allude, it is in the great majority of cases from or to the Holy Scriptures. [34] Occasionally we come upon a reference to Shakespeare; now and then we meet with one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but these occur so seldom, that it may be said, once for all, that the source from which Mr. Dickens is usually in the habit of making quotations, is the Bible only. It is very interesting to find that so many of Mr. Dickens’s characters are represented as being in the habit either of regularly reading and studying the Bible, or of having it read to them by some one else.

“I ain’t much of a hand at reading writing-hand,” said Betty Higden, “though I can read my Bible and most print.” Little Nell was in the constant habit of taking the Bible with her to read while in her quiet and lonely retreat in the old church, after all her long and weary wanderings were past. In the happy time which Oliver Twist spent with Mrs. Maylie and Rose, he used to read, in the evenings, a chapter or two from the Bible, which he had been studying all the week, and in the performance of which duty he felt more proud and pleased than if he had been the clergyman himself. There was Sarah, in the “Sketches by Boz,” who regularly read the Bible to her old mistress; and in the touching sketch of “Our Next-door Neighbour” in the same book, we find the mother of the sick boy engaged in reading the Bible to him when the visitor called and interrupted her. This incident reminds us of the poor Chancery prisoner in the Fleet, who, when on his death-bed calmly waiting the release which would set him free for ever, had the Bible read to him by an old man in a cobbler’s apron. One of David Copperfield’s earliest recollections was of a certain Sunday evening, when his mother read aloud to him and Peggotty the story of Our Saviour raising Lazarus from the dead. So deep an impression did the story make upon the boy, taken in connexion with all that had been lately told him about his father’s funeral, that he requested to be carried up to his bed-room, from the windows of which he could see the quiet churchyard with the dead all lying in their graves at rest below the solemn moon. Pip, too, in “Great Expectations,” was not only in the habit of reading the Bible to the convict under sentence of death, but of praying with him as well; and Esther Summerson tells us how she used to come downstairs every evening at nine o’clock to read the Bible to her god-mother.

Not a few of the dwellings into which Mr. Dickens conducts us in the course of some of his best-known stories, have their walls decorated with prints illustrative of familiar scenes from sacred history. Thus when Martin Chuzzlewit went away from Pecksniff’s, and was ten good miles on his way to London, he stopped to breakfast in the parlour of a little roadside inn, on the walls of which were two or three highly-coloured pictures, representing the Wise Men at the Manger, and the Prodigal Son returning to his Father. On the walls of Peggotty’s charming boat-cottage there were prints, showing the Sacrifice of Isaac, and the Casting of Daniel into the Den of Lions. When Arthur Clennam came home after his long absence in the East, he found the Plagues of Egypt still hanging, framed and glazed, on the same old place in his mother’s parlour. And who has forgotten the fireplace in old Scrooge’s house, which “was paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures?”

Here are a few comparisons. Mr. Larry, in bestowing a bachelor’s blessing on Miss Cross, before “somebody” came to claim her for his own, “held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam.” As old as Adam here means so long ago as Adam’s time; while Methuselah suggests great age. Thus Miss Jellyby relieved her mind to Miss Summerson on the subject of Mr. Quale, in the following energetic language:—“If he were to come with his great shining, lumpy forehead, night after night, till he was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him.” And Mr. Filer, in his eminently practical remarks on the lamentable ignorance of political economy on the part of working people in connexion with marriage, observed to Alderman Cute that a man may live to be as old as Methuselah, and may labour all his life for the benefit of such people; but there could be no more hope of persuading them that they had no right or business to be married, than he could hope to persuade them that they had no earthly right or business to be born. Miss Betsy Trotwood declared to Mr. Dick that the natural consequence of David Copperfield’s mother having married a murderer—or a man with a name very like it—was to set the boy a-prowling and wandering about the country, “like Cain before he was grown up.” Joe Gargery’s journeyman, on going away from his work at night, used to slouch out of the shop like Cain, or the Wandering Jew, as if he had no idea where he was going, and had no intention of ever coming back. Describing the state of “the thriving City of Eden,” when Martin and Mark arrived there, the author of “Martin Chuzzlewit” says—“The waters of the Deluge might have left it but a week before, so choked with slime and matted growth was the hideous swamp which bore that name.” The Deluge suggests Noah’s ark. The following reference to it is from “Little Dorrit,” descriptive of the gradual approach of darkness up among the highest ridges of the Alps:—“The ascending night came up the mountains like a rising water. When at last it rose to the walls of the convent of the great St. Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were another ark, and floated on the shadowy waves.” Here is something from the Tower of Babel:—“Looming heavy in the black wet night, the tall chimneys of the Coketown factories rose high into the air, and looked as if they were so many competing towers of Babel.” When Mortimer Lightwood inquired of Charley Hexam, with reference to the body of the man found in the river, whether or not any means had been employed to restore life, he received this reply:—“You wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharoah’s multitude that were drowned in the Red Sea ain’t more beyond restoring to life.” The boy added, further, “that if Lazarus were only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all the miracles.” When the Scotch surgeon was called in professionally to see Mr. Krook’s unfortunate lodger, the Scotch tongue pronounced him to be “just as dead as Chairy.” Job’s poverty is not likely to be forgotten among the comparisons. No, Mr. Mell’s mother was as poor as Job. Nor Samson’s strength: Dot’s mother had so many infallible recipes for the preservation of the baby’s health, that had they all been administered, the said baby must have been done for, though strong as an infant Samson. Nor Goliath’s importance: John Chivery’s chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to Little Dorrit, made him so very respectable, in spite of his small stature, his weak legs, and his genuine poetic temperament, that a Goliath might have sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur Clennam’s hands. Nor Solomon’s wisdom: Trotty Veck was so delighted when the child kissed him that he couldn’t help saying, “She’s as sensible as Solomon.” Miss Wade having said farewell to her fellow-travellers in the public room of the hotel at Marseilles, sought her own apartment. As she passed along the gallery, she heard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and, looking into the room, she saw therein Pet’s attendant, the maid with the curious name of Tattycoram. Miss Wade asked what was the matter, and received in reply a few short and angry words in a deeply-injured, ill-used tone. Then again commenced the sobs and tears and pinching, tearing fingers, making altogether such a scene as if she were being “rent by the demons of old.” Let us close these comparisons by quoting another from the same book, “Little Dorrit,” descriptive of the evening stillness after a day of terrific glare and heat at Marseilles:—“The sun went down in a red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the fire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness of a better order of beings; the long, dusty roads and the interminable plains were in repose, and so deep a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead.”

Looking over the familiar pages of “Nicholas Nickleby,” our eye lights upon a passage, almost at opening, which refers to God’s goodness and mercy. As Nickleby’s father lay on his death-bed, he embraced his wife and children, and then “solemnly commended them to One who never deserted the widow or her fatherless children.” Towards the close of Esther Summerson’s narrative in “Bleak House” we read these touching, tender words regarding Ada’s baby:—“The little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father’s grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father’s name. The help that my dear counted on did come to her; though it came in the Eternal Wisdom for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand, and how its touch could heal my darling’s heart and raise up hopes within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and tenderness of God.” After these illustrations of the great lessons of the goodness of God, and that there is mercy in even our hardest trials, we come next upon one which teaches the duty of patience and resignation to God’s will. Mrs. Maylie observed to Oliver Twist, with reference to the dangerous illness of Rose, that she had seen and experienced enough to “know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should give us comfort in our sorrow, for Heaven is just, and such things teach us impressively that there is a brighter world than this, and that the passage to it is speedy. God’s will be done!”

Our Saviour’s life and teaching afford so many interesting illustrations to Charles Dickens that our great difficulty, in the limited space to which we are now confined, is to make a good selection. Here is a sketch entitled “A Christmas Tree,” from one of his reprinted pieces, which contains this simple and beautiful summary of our Lord’s life on earth:—“The waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a Baby in a manger; a Child in a spacious temple talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where He sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon His knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”

These passages, which are only a few out of a very much longer list that might be made, will be sufficient, we trust, to show how much our greatest living novelist is in the habit of going to the sacred narrative for illustrations to many of his most touching incidents, and how reverent and respectful always is the spirit in which every such illustration is employed. To think of Charles Dickens’s writings as containing no religious teaching, is to do them a great injustice.

The first of Mr. Dickens’s famous public Readings was given at Birmingham, during the Christmas week of 1853. At a meeting held on Monday, January 10, 1853, in the theatre of the Philosophical Institution, “for the purpose of considering the desirableness of establishing in Birmingham a Scientific and Literary Society upon a comprehensive plan, having for its object the diffusion,” &c., Mr. Arthur Ryland read a letter from Mr. Charles Dickens, received by him the day after the Literary and Artistic Banquet, containing an offer to visit Birmingham next Christmas, and read his Christmas Carol, in the Town Hall, for the benefit of the proposed Institution, with the proviso, however, that as many as possible of the working class should be admitted free. “It would,” said Mr. Dickens, “take about two hours, with a pause of ten minutes half-way through. There would be some novelty in the thing, as I have never done it in public, though I have in private, and (if I may say so) with a great effect on the hearers. I was so inexpressibly gratified last night by the warmth and enthusiasm of my Birmingham friends, that I feel half ashamed this morning of so poor an offer. But as I had decided on making it to you before I came down yesterday, I propose it nevertheless.”

The readings—three in number—came off with great Éclat during the last week of the year, and brought in a net sum of £400 to the Institute. Mr. Dickens continued from this time to give similar readings, for charitable purposes, both in the provinces and in London; but it was not till five years later (1858) that he began to read on his own account.

As we are writing, that long series of readings—continued through sixteen years, in both hemispheres—is drawing to a close, and the voice and figure of Charles Dickens, that have grown so familiar to us all, will dwell henceforth in the memory alone, but in one of its most honoured niches.

We ought not to omit to mention what any reader may well surmise, that Charles Dickens is inimitable in enlivening correspondence or table-talk with humorous anecdote, appropriate to the occasion. We subjoin a few specimens. The first is from one of his letters to Douglas Jerrold, and is dated Paris, 14th February, 1847:—“I am somehow reminded of a good story I heard the other night from a man who was a witness of it, and an actor in it. At a certain German town last autumn there was a tremendous furore about Jenny Lind, who, after driving the whole place mad, left it, on her travels, early one morning. The moment her carriage was outside the gates, a party of rampant students, who had escorted it, rushed back to the inn, demanded to be shown to her bedroom, swept like a whirlwind upstairs into the room indicated to them, tore up the sheets, and wore them in strips as decorations. An hour or two afterwards a bald old gentleman, of amiable appearance, an Englishman, who was staying in the hotel, came to breakfast at the table d’hÔte, and was observed to be much disturbed in his mind, and to show great terror whenever a student came near him. At last he said, in a low voice, to some people who were near him at the table, ‘You are English gentlemen, I observe. Most extraordinary people, these Germans! Students, as a body, raving mad, gentlemen!’ ‘Oh, no!’ said somebody else; ‘excitable, but very good fellows, and very sensible.’ ‘By God, sir!’ returned the old gentleman, still more disturbed, ‘then there’s something political in it, and I am a marked man. I went out for a little walk this morning after shaving, and while I was gone’—he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told it—‘they burst into my bedroom, tore up my sheets, and are now patrolling the town in all directions with bits of ’em in their button-holes!’ I needn’t wind up by adding that they had gone to the wrong chamber.”

Dickens now and then administers a little gentle rebuke to affectation, in a pleasant but unmistakable manner. Here is an instance of how he silenced a bilious young writer, who was inveighing against the world in a very “forcible feeble manner.” During a pause in this philippic against the human race, Dickens said across the table, in the most self-congratulatory of tones:—“I say—what a lucky thing it is you and I don’t belong to it? It reminds me,” continued the author of Pickwick, “of the two men, who on a raised scaffold were awaiting the final delicate attention of the hangman; the notice of one was aroused by observing that a bull had got into the crowd of spectators, and was busily employed in tossing one here, and another there; whereupon one of the criminals said to the other—‘I say, Bill, how lucky it is for us that we are up here.’”

Here is a humorous and graphic account which he sent to the leading newspaper of his sensations during the shock of earthquake that was felt all over England in October, 1863. It is doubly interesting, as giving a description of his country-house at Gad’s-hill, near Rochester:—

“I was awakened by a violent swaying of my bedstead from side to side, accompanied by a singular heaving motion. It was exactly as if some great beast had been crouching asleep under the bedstead, and were now shaking itself and trying to rise. The time by my watch was twenty minutes past three, and I suppose the shock to have lasted nearly a minute. The bedstead, a large iron one, standing nearly north and south, appeared to me to be the only piece of furniture in the room that was heavily shaken. Neither the doors nor the windows rattled, though they rattle enough in windy weather, this house standing alone, on high ground, in the neighbourhood of two great rivers. There was no noise. The air was very still, and much warmer than it had been in the earlier part of the night. Although the previous afternoon had been wet, the glass had not fallen. I had mentioned my surprise at its standing near the letter ‘i’ in ‘Fair,’ and having a tendency to rise.”

But the thing which, above all others, has characterised Dickens throughout his career, that has made his world-wide fame, and rendered his name a household word, is his broad, genial sympathy with life in all its phases, and with those most who are manfully toiling towards a better day. To this “enthusiasm of humanity” John Forster has alluded in the Dedicatory Sonnet to Charles Dickens, prefixed to his “Life of Goldsmith,” (March, 1848), when he says:—

“Come with me and behold,
O friend with heart as gentle for distress,
As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind
The happiest to the unhappiest of our kind,
That there is fiercer crowded misery
In garret-toil and London loneliness
Than in cruel islands ’mid the far-off sea.”

The great heart of Dickens has beat in unison with his age and with the people, and his name will be dear to all English-speaking races long after this little island of ours, the old home, shall have become a summer resort—a curiosity to visit—for the children of the great Anglo-Saxon Republics that are now growing up in the New and the Southern Worlds.

December, 1869.