25 10 361 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. As his speech, he said, was in the report which he had presented to the chairman, he would not be able to renew the gratification which the learned gentleman, the seconder of the amendment, said he felt at hearing his speeches. He regarded, moreover, the complaint of the lamentable deficiency of their funds, after the astounding and unanswered statement made by Mr. Dilke of their financial resources, as about the most bitterly ironical thing which the human mind could conceive of that society. The honourable gentleman who had moved the amendment had appeared, in common with other gentlemen who had addressed the meeting, to approach the proposal entirely in the character of a lender; but let him approach it in the character of a borrower, and put the question to them as a matter of feeling, whether they could not conceive the case of a high-spirited literary man, who would refuse to apply for a gift of money but who would be willing to come to the Fund for a loan to assist him in his difficulties. The noble lord had said, ‘Oh! he can regard it as a loan, and can pay it back again in the form of a donation.’ But, he would ask, was there a man in that room, who, having received a loan of, say, a hundred pounds, would have the audacity to put down his name in the list of subscribers as a donor to the society of one hundred pounds, when he repaid it? The suggestion was founded on a perfect misconception of the literary character and honour of the country which it was amazing to hear from such lips. A gentleman in the room interrupted to say that it was understood that Chateaubriand had done so. DICKENS. <span class="NormalTextRun SCXW266286389 BCX0" data-ccp-charstyle="normaltextrun" data-ccp-charstyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"a910b0d7-d005-48fc-ba31-8678fc05619c|36","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[201342446,"1",201342447,"5",201342448,"1",201342449,"1",469777841,"Aptos",469777842,"",469777843,"Aptos",469777844,"Aptos",201341986,"1",469769226,"Aptos",268442635,"22",469775450,"normaltextrun",201340122,"1",134233614,"true",469778129,"normaltextrun",335572020,"1",469778324,"Default Paragraph Font"]}">– Then he did extremely wrong. JOHN MURRAY. – I would do so, too. DICKENS – Then you would be extremely wrong, likewise. With respect to the proposal of the Committee to establish a place for the reunion of literary men, it had been objected by one honourable gentleman that the Athenaeum and other clubs already existed, to which literary men might resort. Why, there was also a fine building known as the London Tavern, which was equally open and accessible to literary men. But did they think that Mr. Bathe, the respectable and enterprising owner of that establishment, would keep his house open for such a purpose? The accommodation proposed to be provided by the committee was of a character suited to the requirements of persons who were altogether unable to avail themselves of privileges such as those to which he had referred. It had been said that the committee wished to take a very large proportion of the £30,000 belonging to the Fund, and appropriate it to other purposes. Nothing of the sort was intended; and the committee had expressly stated in their report that the funds required would be supplied by those persons who would avail themselves of the privilege of the proposed new institution. The object of the literary institution was to induce literary men at home and abroad to take a greater interest in the society, and in case of success the committee anticipated that the increased interest would ensure a corresponding increase in contributions to the Literary Fund; and they proposed that the experiment should first be made on a very small scale, and at almost nominal expense, and then, if unfortunately they should fail in exciting among the profession an increased interest in the objects of the institution, and so did not gain an accession of subscribers, no possible harm would have been done, and the project need not be carried any further. Mr. Milnes had asked the advocates of the scheme why they did not found such a society as they wanted; but they might just as reasonably ask him, and the other conductors of that institution, why this was not done by them as they had their £30,000 of reserved fund, their £200 a year, with which to fulfil these original intentions of the founders that they now altogether blinked.  He would ask any gentleman present to consider whether the Literary Fund was capable of an extended interest among Literary men? Let him look around the room, and, – he said it without any disrespect – at the representatives of Literature on the platform, and ask himself whether he could not imagine a better representation of Literature, brought together under the name of the Literary Fund. The alterations proposed in the report, in the mode of assisting literary men, were suggested by literary men animated with a feeling in favour of their art, who desired to do it good; and actuated also by an earnest desire to rouse up this slumbering society and make it do more for Literature than it had ever yet done, or was likely to do, if left to itself. They knew well that being awakened was, at all time, and under any circumstances, an extremely disagreeable process. – They all knew this, for they objected to it every day of their lives.But beyond all question the Literary Fund had overslept itself by a great number of years, and it was absolutely necessary to knock it up; and, please God, they would get it out of bed by some means or other.   Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Royal Literary Fund Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18550616 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Literary Fund Special General Meeting 1855 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Literary Fund Special General Meeting (16 June 1855). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855-06-16 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1855-06-16_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Special-General-Meeting Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal Literary Fund Special General Meeting' (16 June 1855). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-06-16_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Special-General-Meeting">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-06-16_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Special-General-Meeting</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Drury Lane Theatre Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18550627 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I cannot, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to compress what I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. It is more than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who thought they should be heard for their much speaking’. As they have propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe that they flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated in this place what the whole country knows perfectly well to be true, and what no men in it can by possibility better know to be true than those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became Premier – I mean that he did officially and habitually joke at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress – I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that a man of this age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having come so between the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. I have some slight acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, and I will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty’s servants, I think I should know where to put my hand on ‘the comic old gentleman’; nor, that if I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to go to for the tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that scene of contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these and on other boards, in which the principal objects thrown about, are loaves and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the reason of these private theatricals, and the reason why, however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is not the faintest present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It is this:—The public theatricals which the noble lord is so condescending as to manage, are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts so ill distributed, the company so full of ‘walking gentlemen’, the managers have such large families, and are so bent upon putting those families into what is theatrically called ‘first business’ – not because of their aptitude for it, but because they are their families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. We have seen the Comedy of Errors played so dismally like a tragedy that we cannot bear it. We are, therefore, making bold to get up the School of Reform, and we hope, before the play is out, to improve that noble lord by our performance very considerably. If he object that we have no right to improve him without his license, we venture to claim that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful piper, whom we always pay. Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as my trade and calling is not politics, perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I come to be here, since reasons similar to those which have influenced me, may still be fluttering, unbalanced, in the minds of others. I want at all times, in plain sincerity, to do my duty by my countrymen. If I feel an attachment toward them, there is nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence and friendship that they have long reposed in me. Within my sphere of action – which I shall never change; I shall never overstep, further or for a longer period than I do tonight, the circle of my own pursuits, as one who lives by Literature, who is content to do his public service through Literature, and who is conscious that he cannot serve two masters – within my sphere of action I have, for some years, tried to understand the heavier social grievances and to help to set them right. When the Times newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplaced men and misdirected things, which had made England unable to find on the face of the earth, an enemy one-twentieth part so potent for the misery and ruin of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy silence into which the country fell, was by far the darkest aspect in which a great people had been exhibited for very many years. With shame and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us – with little adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, in Parliament – with the machinery of Government and the legislature going round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, when it had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them – I did believe, and I do believe, that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking of the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty to effect a great peaceful constitutional change in the administration of their own affairs. At such a crisis this Association arose, and at such a crisis I joined it: considering its further case to be – if further case could possibly be needed – that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business, that men must be gregarious in their good citizenship as in most other things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a centre of attraction for particles to fly to, before any serviceable body with recognised functions can come into existence. Well! This Association has arisen, and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have heard in the main but three, which I will briefly glance at, in the order in which I have heard them. One. It is proposed to exercise an influence, through the constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not the least hesitation in saying that I have the smallest amount of faith in the House of Commons at present existing, and that I consider the exercise of such influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this country. Reading no later than yesterday, a favourite boo of mine, I find Mr. Pepys, two hundred years ago, writing of the House of Commons in his time and its political contentions, thus: My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust for being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design. Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many years after a Reform Bill, the House of Commons is so little changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that bills which cramp and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so easily smuggled through that place, and how it happens that measures for their real service are so very difficult to pass. I will not analyse the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases, its deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable Member who was once a candidate for the honour of your – and my – independent vote and interest. I will not ask what Sectarian figure that is, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes to pass that personal altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare’s Touchstone – the retort courteous – the reply churlish – the reproof valiant – the countercheck quarrelsome – the lie circumstantial and the lie direct – are of immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, the education, of a whole people. I will not penetrate the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard, Party, keeps his strangled public questions, straitly charging his last bride, the new comer, on no account to open the door. I will merely put it to the humble practical experience, recent and remote, of everybody here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, not a little dim of sight, not a little slow of understanding: whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiently invalided state to require close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and whether it is not capable of considerable improvement? I believe that, in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, the people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have its memory jogged; it must be kept awake; when it happens to have taken too much Ministerial narcotic, it must be trotted about, and must be bustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. And I hold that no power can have so just a right to administer our functions as a body comprising electors from all parts of the country, who are associated together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, unmeaning routine, orthe absurdest worn out conventionalities. This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this Association sets class against class. Is this so? No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in opposition here, the two words Aristocracy and People. I am one who can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and, I would elevate or depress neither, at the cost of a single just right belonging to either. I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the governors and the governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between them, in which lie, newly buried, thousands on thousands of the bravest and most devoted men that, even England ever bred. It is to prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! The old unmeaning parrot cry than which we remember nothing earlier in our lives! Try its justice in this case, by an illustration:– A respectable old gentleman with a large and costly establishment of servants, finds his household in complete disorder, and that he can get nothing done. When he asks his servants to give his children bread, they give them stones; when they are told to give those children fish, they give them serpents. When they are ordered to send to the East they send to the West; when they ought to be serving dinner in the North, they were consulting obsolete and exploded cookery books in the South; they break, lose, forget, waste, destroy; only tumble over one another when required to do anything; and make the respectable gentleman’s house a scene of scandalous ruin. At last the respectable gentleman calls to him his house steward, and says, even then more in sorrow than in anger, This is a terrible business, no fortune can stand it – no mortal equanimity can bear it! I must change my system of appointing my servants; I must obtain servants who now and will do their duty’. The house steward throws up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates ‘Good God, here is my master setting class against class!’ rushes off into the servants’ hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wicked theme. And so we come to the third objection, which I have observed to obtain among that class of young gentlemen of good family, who are not particularly fit for anything but spending money which they have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, ‘How very extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can’t mind their own business’. I think it will occur to most of us who are here, in final disposal of this alarming objection, that it is rather because we do mind our own business, and because we must have our business minded, and because those who undertake to mind it do not mind it properly, that we are an Association at all. I observe from the Parliamentary debates – which have of late, by-the-by, frequently suggested to me that there is this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull – I have observed in the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and the counter check quarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I dare say I should have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it that I will substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St. Stephen. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer; and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Mr. Cocker was born, and died. Mr. Walkinghame, of The Tutor’s Assistant, and a terrible hand at figures, was born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers, actuaries, and mathematicians, were born, and died; and still official routine clung to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called ‘tallies’. Late in the the reign of George III, some restless and revolutionary spirit originated the suggestion, whether, in a land where there were pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, and systems of accounts, this rigid adherence to a barbarous usage might not possibly border on the ridiculous? All the red tape in the public offices turned redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1843 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and dispatch-boxing, on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any of us unofficial personages that nothing would have been easier than to allow them to be carried away for firewood, by some of the many miserable creatures in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine could not endure that they ever should be useful, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build two more; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn’t got home tonight. I think we may reasonably observe, in conclusion, that all-obstinate adherence to rubbish which time has long outlived, is certain to have in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; more or less that will some day set fire to something or other; which, freely given to the winds would have been harmless, which, persistently retained, is ruinous. I repeat, with submission, that I think it is as unnecessary to set the Administrative Reform case up, as it is idle to hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance. The great, broad, and true case that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the existence of the sun, moon, and stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the country’s cause for merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic or democratic, and only asking whether it be honest or true: I take to be the object of this Association. This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large numbers of the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they may better comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves, and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of which there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the skirmishers of Party, as they are thrown out from time to time by their Generals, they may see that feints and manoeuvres do not oppress the small defaulters and release the great, and that they do not gull the public with a mere field-day Review of Administrative Reform, instead of an earnest hard-fought Battle. I speak as an individual, wholly unconnected with the management of this Association, and having had no consultation with any one upon the subject, when I particularly wish that the directors may devise some means of enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms than subscribers who have larger resources. I could wish to see great numbers of them belong to it, because I sincerely believe that it would be good for the common weal. Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard asked him for a day for his motion. Let the hon. gentleman find a day for himself. Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed That he is grown so great? If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, ‘First Lord, your duty it is to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. See you, who take the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, its crowds of wicked, woe the day which the dangerous man shall find for himself, because the head of the Queen’s Government failed in his duty of anticipating it by a brighter and better one! Name you the day, First Lord; make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in return may then – not otherwise – find a day for you; a day equally associated with the contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted English people, and with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her fair line of children. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Administrative Reform Association Meeting Description An account of the resource Speech at an Administrative Reform Association Meeting (27 June 1855). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855-06-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1855-06-27_Speech_Administrative-Reform-Association-Meeting Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at an Administrative Reform Association Meeting' (27 June 1855). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-06-27_Speech_Administrative-Reform-Association-Meeting">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-06-27_Speech_Administrative-Reform-Association-Meeting</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I cannot, I am sure, better express my sense of the kind reception accorded to me by this great assembly, than by promising to compress what I shall address to it within the closest possible limits. It is more than eighteen hundred years ago, since there was a set of men who thought they should be heard for their much speaking’. As they have propagated exceedingly since that time, and as I observe that they flourish just now to a surprising extent about Westminster, I will do my best to avoid adding to the numbers of that prolific race. The noble lord at the head of the Government, when he wondered in Parliament about a week ago, that my friend, Mr. Layard, did not blush for having stated in this place what the whole country knows perfectly well to be true, and what no men in it can by possibility better know to be true than those disinterested supporters of that noble lord, who had the advantage of hearing him and cheering him night after night, when he first became Premier – I mean that he did officially and habitually joke at a time when this country was plunged in deep disgrace and distress – I say, that noble lord, when he wondered so much that a man of this age, who has, by his earnest and adventurous spirit, done the most to distinguish himself and it, did not blush for the tremendous audacity of having come so between the wind and his nobility, turned an airy period with reference to the private theatricals at Drury Lane Theatre. I have some slight acquaintance with theatricals, private and public, and I will accept that figure of the noble lord. I will not say that if I wanted to form a company of Her Majesty’s servants, I think I should know where to put my hand on ‘the comic old gentleman’; nor, that if I wanted to get up a pantomime, I fancy I should know what establishment to go to for the tricks and changes; also, for a very considerable host of supernumeraries, to trip one another up in that scene of contention with which many of us are familiar, both on these and on other boards, in which the principal objects thrown about, are loaves and fishes. But I will try to give the noble lord the reason of these private theatricals, and the reason why, however ardently he may desire to ring the curtain down upon them, there is not the faintest present hope of their coming to a conclusion. It is this:—The public theatricals which the noble lord is so condescending as to manage, are so intolerably bad, the machinery is so cumbrous, the parts so ill distributed, the company so full of ‘walking gentlemen’, the managers have such large families, and are so bent upon putting those families into what is theatrically called ‘first business’ – not because of their aptitude for it, but because they are their families, that we find ourselves obliged to organize an opposition. We have seen the Comedy of Errors played so dismally like a tragedy that we cannot bear it. We are, therefore, making bold to get up the School of Reform, and we hope, before the play is out, to improve that noble lord by our performance very considerably. If he object that we have no right to improve him without his license, we venture to claim that right in virtue of his orchestra, consisting of a very powerful piper, whom we always pay. Sir, as this is the first political meeting I have ever attended, and as my trade and calling is not politics, perhaps it may be useful for me to show how I come to be here, since reasons similar to those which have influenced me, may still be fluttering, unbalanced, in the minds of others. I want at all times, in plain sincerity, to do my duty by my countrymen. If I feel an attachment toward them, there is nothing disinterested or meritorious in that, for I can never too affectionately remember the confidence and friendship that they have long reposed in me. Within my sphere of action – which I shall never change; I shall never overstep, further or for a longer period than I do tonight, the circle of my own pursuits, as one who lives by Literature, who is content to do his public service through Literature, and who is conscious that he cannot serve two masters – within my sphere of action I have, for some years, tried to understand the heavier social grievances and to help to set them right. When the Times newspaper proved its then almost incredible case, in reference to the ghastly absurdity of that vast labyrinth of misplaced men and misdirected things, which had made England unable to find on the face of the earth, an enemy one-twentieth part so potent for the misery and ruin of her noble defenders as she has been herself, I believe that the gloomy silence into which the country fell, was by far the darkest aspect in which a great people had been exhibited for very many years. With shame and indignation lowering among all classes of society, and this new element of discord piled on the heaving basis of ignorance, poverty and crime, which is always below us – with little adequate expression of the general mind, or apparent understanding of the general mind, in Parliament – with the machinery of Government and the legislature going round and round, and the people fallen from it and standing aloof, as if they left it to its last remaining function of destroying itself, when it had achieved the destruction of so much that was dear to them – I did believe, and I do believe, that the only wholesome turn affairs so menacing could take, was, the awaking of the people, the outspeaking of the people, the uniting of the people in all patriotism and loyalty to effect a great peaceful constitutional change in the administration of their own affairs. At such a crisis this Association arose, and at such a crisis I joined it: considering its further case to be – if further case could possibly be needed – that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business, that men must be gregarious in their good citizenship as in most other things, and that it is a law in nature that there must be a centre of attraction for particles to fly to, before any serviceable body with recognised functions can come into existence. Well! This Association has arisen, and we belong to it. What are the objections to it? I have heard in the main but three, which I will briefly glance at, in the order in which I have heard them. One. It is proposed to exercise an influence, through the constituencies, on the House of Commons. I have not the least hesitation in saying that I have the smallest amount of faith in the House of Commons at present existing, and that I consider the exercise of such influence highly necessary to the welfare and honour of this country. Reading no later than yesterday, a favourite boo of mine, I find Mr. Pepys, two hundred years ago, writing of the House of Commons in his time and its political contentions, thus: My cousin Roger Pepys tells me that it is matter of the greatest grief to him in the world that he should be put upon this trust for being a Parliament man; because he says nothing is done, that he can see, out of any truth and sincerity, but mere envy and design. Now, how it comes to pass that after two hundred years, and many years after a Reform Bill, the House of Commons is so little changed, I will not stop to inquire. I will not ask how it happens that bills which cramp and worry the people, and restrict their scant enjoyments, are so easily smuggled through that place, and how it happens that measures for their real service are so very difficult to pass. I will not analyse the confined air of the lobby, or reduce to their primitive gases, its deadening influences on the memory of that Honourable Member who was once a candidate for the honour of your – and my – independent vote and interest. I will not ask what Sectarian figure that is, full of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes to pass that personal altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare’s Touchstone – the retort courteous – the reply churlish – the reproof valiant – the countercheck quarrelsome – the lie circumstantial and the lie direct – are of immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, the education, of a whole people. I will not penetrate the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard, Party, keeps his strangled public questions, straitly charging his last bride, the new comer, on no account to open the door. I will merely put it to the humble practical experience, recent and remote, of everybody here, whether the House of Commons is not occasionally a little hard of hearing, not a little dim of sight, not a little slow of understanding: whether, in short, it is not in a sufficiently invalided state to require close watching, and the occasional application of sharp stimulants; and whether it is not capable of considerable improvement? I believe that, in order to preserve it in a state of real usefulness and independence, the people must be very watchful and very jealous of it; and it must have its memory jogged; it must be kept awake; when it happens to have taken too much Ministerial narcotic, it must be trotted about, and must be bustled and pinched in a friendly way, as is the usage in such cases. And I hold that no power can have so just a right to administer our functions as a body comprising electors from all parts of the country, who are associated together because their country is dearer to them than drowsy twaddle, unmeaning routine, orthe absurdest worn out conventionalities. This brings me to objection number two. It is stated that this Association sets class against class. Is this so? No, it finds class set against class, and seeks to reconcile them. I wish to avoid placing in opposition here, the two words Aristocracy and People. I am one who can believe in the virtues and uses of both, and, I would elevate or depress neither, at the cost of a single just right belonging to either. I will use, instead of these words, the terms, the governors and the governed. These two bodies the Association finds with a gulf between them, in which lie, newly buried, thousands on thousands of the bravest and most devoted men that, even England ever bred. It is to prevent the recurrence of innumerable smaller evils, of which, unchecked, that great calamity was the crowning height and the necessary consummation, and to bring together those two fronts looking now so strangely at each other, that this Association seeks to help to bridge over that abyss, with a structure founded on common justice and supported by common sense. Setting class against class! The old unmeaning parrot cry than which we remember nothing earlier in our lives! Try its justice in this case, by an illustration:– A respectable old gentleman with a large and costly establishment of servants, finds his household in complete disorder, and that he can get nothing done. When he asks his servants to give his children bread, they give them stones; when they are told to give those children fish, they give them serpents. When they are ordered to send to the East they send to the West; when they ought to be serving dinner in the North, they were consulting obsolete and exploded cookery books in the South; they break, lose, forget, waste, destroy; only tumble over one another when required to do anything; and make the respectable gentleman’s house a scene of scandalous ruin. At last the respectable gentleman calls to him his house steward, and says, even then more in sorrow than in anger, This is a terrible business, no fortune can stand it – no mortal equanimity can bear it! I must change my system of appointing my servants; I must obtain servants who now and will do their duty’. The house steward throws up his eyes in pious horror, ejaculates ‘Good God, here is my master setting class against class!’ rushes off into the servants’ hall, and delivers a long and melting oration on that wicked theme. And so we come to the third objection, which I have observed to obtain among that class of young gentlemen of good family, who are not particularly fit for anything but spending money which they have not got. It is usually comprised in the observation, ‘How very extraordinary it is that these Administrative Reform fellows can’t mind their own business’. I think it will occur to most of us who are here, in final disposal of this alarming objection, that it is rather because we do mind our own business, and because we must have our business minded, and because those who undertake to mind it do not mind it properly, that we are an Association at all. I observe from the Parliamentary debates – which have of late, by-the-by, frequently suggested to me that there is this difference between the bull of Spain the bull of Nineveh, that, whereas, in the Spanish case, the bull rushes at the scarlet, in the Ninevite case, the scarlet rushes at the bull – I have observed in the Parliamentary debates that, by a curious fatality, there has been a great deal of the reproof valiant and the counter check quarrelsome, in reference to every case, showing the necessity of Administrative Reform, by whomsoever produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I dare say I should have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, very well known story, which has so pointed a moral at the end of it that I will substitute it for a new case: by doing of which I may avoid, I hope, the sacred wrath of St. Stephen. Ages ago a savage mode of keeping accounts on notched sticks was introduced into the Court of Exchequer; and the accounts were kept, much as Robinson Crusoe kept his calendar on the desert island. In the course of considerable revolutions of time, the celebrated Mr. Cocker was born, and died. Mr. Walkinghame, of The Tutor’s Assistant, and a terrible hand at figures, was born, and died; a multitude of accountants, book-keepers, actuaries, and mathematicians, were born, and died; and still official routine clung to these notched sticks, as if they were pillars of the constitution, and still the Exchequer accounts continued to be kept on certain splints of elm wood called ‘tallies’. Late in the the reign of George III, some restless and revolutionary spirit originated the suggestion, whether, in a land where there were pens, ink, and paper, slates and pencils, and systems of accounts, this rigid adherence to a barbarous usage might not possibly border on the ridiculous? All the red tape in the public offices turned redder at the bare mention of this bold and original conception, and it took till 1826 to get these sticks abolished. In 1843 it was found that there was a considerable accumulation of them; and the question then arose, what was to be done with such worn-out, worm-eaten rotten old bits of wood? I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and dispatch-boxing, on this mighty subject. The sticks were housed at Westminster, and it would naturally occur to any of us unofficial personages that nothing would have been easier than to allow them to be carried away for firewood, by some of the many miserable creatures in that neighbourhood. However, they never had been useful, and official routine could not endure that they ever should be useful, and so the order went forth that they were to be privately and confidentially burnt. It came to pass that they were burnt in a stove in the House of Lords. The stove, overgorged with these preposterous sticks, set fire to the panelling; the panelling set fire to the House of Lords; the House of Lords set fire to the House of Commons; the two houses were reduced to ashes; architects were called in to build two more; we are now in the second million of the cost thereof; the national pig is not nearly over the stile yet; and the little old woman, Britannia, hasn’t got home tonight. I think we may reasonably observe, in conclusion, that all-obstinate adherence to rubbish which time has long outlived, is certain to have in the soul of it more or less that is pernicious and destructive; more or less that will some day set fire to something or other; which, freely given to the winds would have been harmless, which, persistently retained, is ruinous. I repeat, with submission, that I think it is as unnecessary to set the Administrative Reform case up, as it is idle to hope to put it down, on this or that particular instance. The great, broad, and true case that our public progress is far behind our private progress, and that we are not more remarkable for our private wisdom and success in matters of business than we are for our public folly and failure, I take to be as clearly established as the existence of the sun, moon, and stars. To set this right, and to clear the way in the country’s cause for merit everywhere: accepting it equally whether it be aristocratic or democratic, and only asking whether it be honest or true: I take to be the object of this Association. This object it seeks to promote by uniting together large numbers of the people, I hope, of all conditions, to the end that they may better comprehend, bear in mind, understand themselves, and impress upon others, the common public duty. Also, of which there is great need, that by keeping a vigilant eye on the skirmishers of Party, as they are thrown out from time to time by their Generals, they may see that feints and manoeuvres do not oppress the small defaulters and release the great, and that they do not gull the public with a mere field-day Review of Administrative Reform, instead of an earnest hard-fought Battle. I speak as an individual, wholly unconnected with the management of this Association, and having had no consultation with any one upon the subject, when I particularly wish that the directors may devise some means of enabling intelligent working men to join this body, on easier terms than subscribers who have larger resources. I could wish to see great numbers of them belong to it, because I sincerely believe that it would be good for the common weal. Said the noble Lord at the head of the Government, when Mr. Layard asked him for a day for his motion. Let the hon. gentleman find a day for himself. Now, in the names of all the gods at once, Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed That he is grown so great? If our Caesar will excuse me, I would take the liberty of reversing that cool and lofty sentiment, and I would say, ‘First Lord, your duty it is to see that no man is left to find a day for himself. See you, who take the responsibility of government, who aspire to it, live for it, intrigue for it, scramble for it, who hold to it tooth-and-nail when you can get it, see you that no man is left to find a day for himself. In this old country, with its seething hard-worked millions, its heavy taxes, its swarms of ignorant, its crowds of poor, its crowds of wicked, woe the day which the dangerous man shall find for himself, because the head of the Queen’s Government failed in his duty of anticipating it by a brighter and better one! Name you the day, First Lord; make a day; work for a day beyond your little time, Lord Palmerston, and History in return may then – not otherwise – find a day for you; a day equally associated with the contentment of the loyal, patient, willing-hearted English people, and with the happiness of your Royal Mistress and her fair line of children. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/6/On_Thackeray_Going_to_America/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America.pdf 0c673e9f29834f23e4f1fb2fc682d340 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. ‘Dickens’s speech gave a happy expression to the spirit that animated all, telling Thackeray not alone how much his friendship was prized by those present, and how proud they were of his genius, but offering him in the name of the tens of thousands absent who had never touched his hand or seen his face, life-long thanks for the treasures of mirth, wit, and wisdom within the yellow-covered numbers of Pendennis and Vanity Fair.’ ‘The chairman rose, amid furiously friendly applause; he had, he said, decided that it would be the wish of everybody to avoid toasts and speech-making, and he therefore went at once to the one object of the assemblage – to propose the health of Mr. Thackeray.’ ‘Mr. Dickens made a neat speech – a very neat speech, in his polished actor-like manner, which has but this defect, that they countenance never swerves with the words – that his superbly brilliant eye stares at you all the time with the fixed clearness of an Argand lamp. He was not fulsome in his compliments to his friend – his highest praise was, that Mr. Thackeray was “no ordinary man,” and he avoided, in praising a novel writing, the laudation of novel-writing, with great tact, merely saying, that he was, with his whole soul, devoted to, and proud of that art, and declaring that Thackeray was an honour, in his life, as in his writings, to that art (which is not altogether too recklessly true). Dexterously he referred to Thackeray’s visit to America, for the purpose of paying a compliment to the Americans, who, he said, whatever motes might be noticed in their keen optics, were to be recognized as a high-spirited, advancing, intellectual, generous race, – the which people who remembered the foolish American notes, cheered as a recantation deserves to be cheered. Mr. Dickens delivered himself in a finished manner of some jokes. The table at which we were dining was horse-shoed in shape; and this table was allegorically or metaphorically pitched at Mr. Thackeray, and nailed on to him by way of securing good luck. Then, it was remembered, that though he went away by himself, he left his creations behind, which was a comfort: - “Jeames” could not act as his servant, and the “snobs” would continue to amuse us. And so on; the wit not magnificent, but sufficient; and so far so good – the speech answered its purpose; and when D., before sitting down, put his little hand into T.’s big hand, and shook T. solemnly, and even pathetically, the room rang with applause – it was an historical picture which Tenniel was taking a note of.’ 'Mr. Dickens rose and said that he would make no more speeches; speeches were a nuisance, and he called on somebody for a song.' 'Mr. Dickens responded, to the effect that he would not make any more speeches, and called on another (idiot) for a song, which was more frightful than the last...' Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Tavern Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Biography Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Life of Charles Dickens Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18551011 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource On Thackeray Going to America Description An account of the resource Speech given at the London Tavern ahead of William Makepace Thackeray going to America (11 October 1855). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Ed. J. W. T. Ley. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928. p. 575. Chester Chronicle (20 October 1855). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855-10-11 Type The nature or genre of the resource Speech Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'On Thackeray Going to America' (11 October 1855). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-10-11_Speech_On_Thackeray_Going_to_America</a>. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn.pdf 0af5836a6edd6f5baa9e8457880ff7fe https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Guest.pdf 920a5d6bd432b863b6017a30a4fe1bfd https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Boots.pdf 48390ca2515ed87c013d71e09576f80b https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_Holly-Tree_Inn_[1855_Christmas_Number]/1855-12-15-The_Bill.pdf 626e66b1b474a0a6255221d387974daa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christmas Numbers Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context christmas-numbers Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites the eighteen Christmas numbers that Dickens orchestrated between 1850 and 1867 in conjunction with multiple Victorian authors, notably Wilkie Collins, and published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round. After writing five Christmas books and multiple sketches on Yuletide cheer - notably 'Scenes and Characters, No. 10, Christmas Festivities', published as 'A Christmas Dinner' in Sketches by Boz (1836) - not to mention the holiday merry-making described in Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dickens might reasonably be supposed to have had his fill of seasonal writing. However, he published a Christmas number in 1850 in HW that contained a series of sketches about Christmas, contributing 'A Christmas Tree' (1850). In the next year's Christmas number, he included the short piece 'What Christmas is, as we Grow Older' (1851). Holiday fiction, though, was what Dickens's readership seemed to crave, and the author, editor, and entrepreneur in Dickens all recognised the opportunity. In 1852, Dickens decided to develop an extra Christmas number for HW which would harness the creative talents of other writers for a series of unrelated stories told within a frame narrative of his own composition. Each year he himself would write several of these parts, generally two to three. Soon, the Christmas number became as much of an expected holiday tradition among Victorian subscribers as had been the Christmas books. All in all, eighteen Christmas numbers of this kind resulted (1850-1867); nine published in HW and nine in ATYR.  <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - Household Words</div> On 24 December 1852, Dickens published A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. Personally, he had written 'The Poor Relation's Story' (No.1) and 'The Child's Story' (No.2) with successive stories authored by other contributors, though no names appeared. What would have been the 1853 extra number was late, published instead on 18 February 1854, a circumstance that would not occur again until the 1864 Christmas number. This time, Dickens published more short stories by himself and others, contributing 'The Schoolboy's Story' and 'Nobody's Story', but the Christmas number, for once, lacked a frame narrative or overarching title, though it would come to be known as Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. 25 December 1854 saw The Seven Poor Travellers, with Dickens penning 'The First' (No.1) and 'The Road' (No.7). By writing the first and last stories in the collection, he, as editor, might steer the entire composition towards a cohesive conclusion.  Next, Dickens wrote 'The Guest' (No.1), 'The Boots' (No.3), and 'The Bill' (No.7) as part of The Holly-Tree Inn (15 December 1855). The Wreck of the 'Golden Mary' followed on 25 December 1856, with Dickens composing only 'The Wreck' (No.1), a lengthy description of a shipwreck which sets up the framing narrative. Next, Dickens collaborated with Wilkie Collins on The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels (7 December 1857), Dickens writing 'The Island of Silver-Store' (No.1) and 'The Rafts on the River' (No.3) with Collins contributing the second chapter. Rounding out the extra Christmas numbers for HW, A House to Let appeared on 7 December 1858, with Dickens authoring 'Going into Society' (No.3). The last issue of HW appeared on 28 May 1859, with the journal virtually concluded, due to disagreements with Dickens's publishers Bradbury and Evans, though it was symbolically folded into ATYR. <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - All the Year Round</div> After Dickens launched his new journal ATYR on 30 April 1859, Christmas remained house-themed with the extra Christmas number The Haunted House (13 December 1859). It featured three offerings from him, 'The Mortals in the House' (No.1), 'The Ghost in Master B's Room' (No.6), and 'The Ghost in the Corner Room' (No.8). Yet Dickens continued to experiment with his holiday themes. He would write 'The Village' (No.1), 'The Money' (No.2), and 'The Restitution' (No.5) for A Message from the Sea, published on 25 December 1860, a story about a New England mariner, Captain Jorgan, who seeks to discover the truth about the origin of a Welsh family's mysterious nest-egg.  For Tom Tiddler's Ground, published 25 December 1861, Dickens produced 'Picking up Soot and Cinders' (No.1), 'Picking up Miss Kimmeens' (No.6), and 'Picking up the Tinker' (No. 7). An impressive four parts of Somebody's Luggage (4 December 1862), 'His Leaving it Till Called For' (No.1), 'His Boots' (No.2), 'His Brown-Paper Parcel' (No.7), and 'His Wonderful End' (No. 10) were produced by Dickens, who notably portrays himself in the story as a character, in his capacity as AYTR editor, to amusing effect. Two subsequent Christmas numbers, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (25 December 1863) and Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy' (12 January 1864), concern the life and activities of a generous landlady who adopts a young boy and raises him with the help of her gallant lodger, Major Jackman. The former contained Dickens's two introductory and conclusion chapters, 'How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business' (No.1) and 'How the Parlours added a few words' (No.6), while the latter featured 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on, and went over' (No.1) and 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jimmy topped up' (No.7), a story including a jaunt to France, with identical placement at the beginning and end of the number. Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions appeared in 1865, with Mugby Junction following in 1866; both frame narratives deal with themes of disability and poverty. For the first, Dickens contributed 'To be Taken Immediately' (No.1), 'To be Taken with a Grain of Salt' (No.6), and 'To be Taken for Life' (No.8); for the latter, he wrote 'Barbox Brothers' (No.1), 'Barbox Brothers and Co.' (No.2), 'Main Line. The Boy at Mugby' (No.3), and 'No.1 Branch Line. The Signal-man' (No.4). For the final Christmas number, No Thoroughfare (12 December 1867), Dickens collaborated with Collins on an imaginative European thriller that ranges from orphanages and offices in London to hotels and precipices in the Swiss Alps. Dickens is known to have primarily written most of The Overture, Act I, Act III, with Collins taking Act 2. Both collaborated on Acts IV and V. However, they deliberately interspersed passages into each other's parts to confuse readers as to which author had written which 'Acts' (Slater, Charles Dickens, pp. 569-573). Consequently, we have merely transcribed the Christmas number in its entirety, as a collaboration. Though Dickens considered beginning a Christmas number in 1868, his other activities, coupled with failing health, led him to gratefully relinquish the idea. Instead, he would eventually go on to attempt another novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), evidently sensing the public's interest in the detective genre, one which he and Collins had, more or less, pioneered with their respective novels Bleak House (1853) (Inspector Bucket) and The Moonstone (1868) (Sergeant Cuff). His mind may also have been running on the mysterious plot of No Thoroughfare, with its malevolent villain, though he did not live to see the plot through to its conclusion. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans from Dickens Journals Online; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. With the exception of No Thoroughfare, transcripts have been made only of parts of numbers Dickens is known to have authored. Lists of writers known to have authored chapters or portions of these extra Christmas numbers have been added to the metadata of each item (Klimaszewski, Appendix A).  Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions. 1. See Melisa Klimaszewski. Collaborative Dickens: Authorship and Victorian Christmas Periodicals (Ohio University Press, 2019); Jude Piesse. 'Dreaming Across Oceans: Emigration and Nation in the Mid-Victorian Christmas Issue'. Victorian Periodicals Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 37-60; Robert Tracy. '"A Whimsical Kind of Masque": The Christmas Books and Victorian Spectacle'. Dickens Studies Annual 27 (1998): 113-30; Deborah A. Thomas. 'The Chord of the Christmas Season'. In Dickens and the Short Story (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982): pp. 62-93; Sarah A. Solberg. '"Text Dropped into the Woodcuts": Dickens's Christmas Books'. Dickens Studies Annual 8 (1980): pp. 103-18; Ruth Glancy. 'Dickens and Christmas: His Framed-Tale Themes'. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 35.1 (June 1980): pp. 53-72; Thomas. 'Contributors to the Christmas Numbers of Household Words and All the Year Round, 1850-1867.' Part I. The Dickensian 70.372 (1973): pp. 163-72. and Part II. TD 70 (1974): pp. 21-29; 'Messages in Bottles and Collins's Seafaring Man'. Anthea Trodd. SEL: Studies in English Literature 41.4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 751-64; Susan Shatto. 'Miss Havisham and Mr. Mopes the Hermit: Dickens and the Mentally Ill'. (Part One) Dickens Quarterly 2.2 (June 1985): pp. 43-50 and (Part Two) DQ 2.3 (September 1985): pp. 79-84; Molly Boggs. '"Given to you by nature for an enemy": The landlady in mid-century London'. Journal of Victorian Culture 23.3 (2018): pp. 310-331; Thomas. 'Dickens' Mrs. Lirriper and the Evolution of a Feminine Stereotype'. Dickens Studies Annual 6 (1977): 154-169; Martha Stoddard Holmes. '"Happy and Yet Pitying Tears": Deafness and Affective Disjuncture in Dickens's Doctor Marigold'. Victorian Review 35.2 (Fall 2009): 53-64; Diana C. Archibald. 'Dickens's Visit to the Perkins School and Doctor Marigold'. Dickens and Massachusetts: The Lasting Legacy of the Commonwealth Visits. Eds. Archibald and Joel J. Brattin (University of Massachusetts, 2015): pp. 123-33; Anne Chapman. '"I am not going on": Negotiating Christmas Publishing Rhythms with Dickens's Mugby Junction'. Victorian Periodicals Review 51.1 (2018): 70-85; Samia Ounoughi. 'The Swiss Alps and Character Framing in No Thoroughfare'. Ed. Maxime Leroy. In Charles Dickens and Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 2013. pp. 114-25; Lillian Nayder. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship (Cornell University Press, 2002). Michael Hollington. '"To the Droodstone": Or, From The Moonstone to Edwin Drood via No Thoroughfare'. Q/W/E/R/T/Y: Arts, Littératures & Civilisations du Monde Anglophone 5 (1995): 141-9.  Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18551215 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it. But, I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I might greatly move the reader, by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character, a bashful man. But, I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. That object is, to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast, I was once snowed up. It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself, and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America—on my way to the Devil. Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall;—I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could, with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned. The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for ever, at five o'clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all- pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged, which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances. How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting, to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name), on the further borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farm-house in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business of which she should know all particulars by- and-by—took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days. There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches: which I occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was, to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But, when one of our Temple watchmen who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, Whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness? I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. When I got up to the Peacock—where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation—I asked, if there were an inside seat to spare? I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey. It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up, high into the rarefied air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside Inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike-houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike-people have children, and seem to like them), rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don't know when the snow began to set in; but, I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, "That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day." Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick. The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking—particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus, Auld Lang Syne, without a moment's intermission. They kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up—which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long, we went on in this manner. Thus, we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. I forget now, where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but, I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedgerows to guide us, we went crunching on, over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hill-side. Still, the coachman and guard—who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them—made out the track with astonishing sagacity. When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the Inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us, was a snowy Saharah. One would have thought this enough; notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change. They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear's in a single minute: "What Inn is this?" "The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. "Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically to the guard and coachman, "that I must stop here." Now, the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the postboy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on? The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through it"—meaning by Her, the coach—"if so be as George would stand by him." George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So, the helpers were already getting the horses out. My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval, even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze—ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree, up-stairs. I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose), engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me, roasting whole before an immense fire. My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase, at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was them grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass—what I may call a wavy glass—above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments—and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves; therefore I am emboldened to mention, that when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail, my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four. Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked, in my bitterness. In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by laborers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree, nobody could tell me. It was now Christmas Eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of it anywhere, and, consequently, that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up, was, like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it very much), than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shame-faced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them. Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house? The waiter brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-book terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again; then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the jokes—in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but Stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen—not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me—I could hear it growling—and began. My first impressions of an Inn, dated from the Nursery; consequently, I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose speciality was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie), had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, "Too much pepper!"—which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another, of the same period, whose profession was, originally, housebreaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the land-lord of a country Inn: which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would, on any consideration, take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which, she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich—which my father was not; and immensely tall—which my father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoule to present my dearest relations and friends to my youthful mind, under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once, through a forest, on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there? She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, "Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!" Upon which, one of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but, he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in a corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger, that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour. These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated—coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then, I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation, that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddlebags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it, as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the fair Imogene. There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign—the Mitre—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction—but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet. "To be continued, to-morrow," said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But, my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep, a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes, as still living; sometimes, as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy; never in association with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire, to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But, in the letter that I wrote, I recorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked, touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice, in the deep stillness of the night, calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls Eve. To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances. That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window, came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally-preserved Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off: who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the re-appearance on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said "I dare!" would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but, the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird man at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep- walker, or an enthusiast, or a robber; but, I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible precipitation. That was not a common-place story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow, zig-zag street among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms: which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering—like rough packing-cases. Outside, there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn, had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-laborer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said "Louis, where is Henri?" They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but, the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the livestock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on—six weeks—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman who sat nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon, the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, "Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!" I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal—the dullest animal in the stables— with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), swept round him like a gust of wind, or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was—not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs and tail; while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks; and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc, Mount Blank—except one good-humored gentle- man, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as " Blank; " observing at breakfast, " Blank looks pretty tall this morning; " or considerably doubting in the court-yard in the evening, whether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now! Once, I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort—an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal, to put the pie on the table. After some days, I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a power orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled. The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. Here, I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn. It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners' Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honor of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing- rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse—though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But, the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chairmaker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a Clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon. The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry me on until I was dug out. I might be a week here—weeks! There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at, in a picturesque old town on the Welch border. In a large, double-bedded room of this Inn, there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum; and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it—bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story), now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various common-place subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested "Poison," the traveller started, and cried "Yes!" He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream. This reminiscence brought the Welch Inns in general, before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whiskey, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once, was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses: which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling, by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance: which I have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science); and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bed-rooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals, tlie pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke or even Windsor to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled laborers and wanderers bivouacing in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteen-pence a-week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for fire-wood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the door-way. What could I next see in my fire, so naturally, as the new railway- house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing, beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? Then, I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty appartement of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next, to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser road-side Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your ante-room; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can't; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a tea-pot. So, to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular stair-cases whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of Heaven; with their stately banqueting- rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bed-chambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So, to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So, to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odors on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark's Cathedral tolling midnight. Next, I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up; and where, in the table d'hôte room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely drest in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows and the grape that grows and Rhine wine that beguiles and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are sodden down to the same flavor, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds a-piece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again, I stood in the bar-rooms bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again, I listened to my friend the General—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians—again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir; ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-room, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room, sir; music-room, sir; reading room, sir; over four-hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old incumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous, the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians, all; full-well knowing that whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. I had been going on lately, at a quick pace, to keep my solitude out of my mind; but, here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord's table and the company I might find there, as to make acquaintance, under various pretences, with some of the inmates of the house, singly—with the object of getting from each, either a whole autobiography, or a passage or experience in one, with which I could cheat the tardy time: first of all by seeking out, then by listening to, then by remembering and writing down? Could I, I asked myself, so far overcome my retiring nature as to do this. I could. I would. I did. The results of this conception I proceed to give, in the exact order in which I attained them. I began my plan of operations at once, and, by slow approaches and after overcoming many obstacles (all of my own making, I believe), reached the story of: Where had he been in his time? he repeated when I asked him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been? Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a'most. Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn't seen, than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would. What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn—and he see him once, at a Fair. But, supposing a young gentleman not eight year old, was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly?Then, that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on—and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in—and they was so little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em. Master Harry Walmers's father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven mile from Lunnon. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that: still he kept the command over the child, and the child was a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was! How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family.—Even supposing Master Harry hadn't come to him one morning early, and said, "Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?" and then begun cutting it in print, all over the fence. He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but, really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and she had been frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the, gravel, and says—speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like you." "Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know, Master Harry, I am sure." "Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." Indeed, sir? That's very gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah." "Certainly, sir." "You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes sir." "Would you like another situation, Cobbs? " "Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a good 'un." "Then, Cobbs," says he, "you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married." And he tucks her, in her little sky blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. Sometimes, they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes, he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once, he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." And Boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn't complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself—only he didn't exactly know who with. "Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the flowers; " I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my grandmamma's at York." "Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going into Yorkshire myself, when I leave here." "Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" "No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." "Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?" "No, sir." The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers, for a little while, and then said, "I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs—Norah's going." "You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, "with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." "Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing. "I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them." "It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs with humility, "—wasn't so meant." "I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going to live with us.—Cobbs!" "Sir." "What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?" "I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." "A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." "Whew! " says Cobbs, " that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." "A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn't a person, Cobbs?" "I believe you, sir!" "Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!" "Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with "Good-night, Cobbs. I'm going in." If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now, if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then and he wanted change. That's what he wanted—change. Mr. Walmers, he said, to him when he give him notice of his intentions to leave, "Cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can." "No, sir," says Cobbs; "thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I'm a going to seek my fortun." "O, indeed, Cobbs?" he says; " I hope you may find it." And Boots could assure me—which he did, touching his hair with his boot-jack, as a salute in the way of his present—calling that he hadn't found it yet. Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry he went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapt up in him. What does that Infant do—for Infant you may call him and be within the mark—but cut away from that old lady's with his Norah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married! Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, "I don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was, that they was to be brought here." The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, "We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bed-rooms will be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two!" and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass. Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was, when those two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the Angel;—much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon. "Cobbs," says the Governor, "if this is so, I must set off myself to York and quiet their friends' minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humour 'em, till I come back. But, before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinions is correct." "Sir to you," says Cobbs, "that shall be done directly." So, Boots goes upstairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on a e-normous sofa—immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him—a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them children looked. "It's Cobbs! It's Cobbs!" cries Master Harry, and comes running to him and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. "I see you a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. "I thought it was you. I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. What's the object of your journey, sir?—Matrimonial? "We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returned the boy. "We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend." "Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss," says Cobbs, "for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?" If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush—seemingly, a doll's. The gentleman had got about half-a-dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it. "What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? " says Cobbs. "To go on," replied the boy—which the courage of that boy was something wonder-ful!—"in the morning, and be married to-morrow." "Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?" When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, "O yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!" "Well, sir," say a Cobbs. "If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify; because I'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over." Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him "Good Cobbs!" and "Dear Cobbs!" and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em, that ever was born. "Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. "We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, "and two apples—and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. But, Norah has always been accustomed to haIf a, glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I." "It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs; and away he went. Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking, as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor, than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for York in half-an-hour. The way in which the women of that house—without exception—every one of 'em—married and single—took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the key-hole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. In the evening, Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder, "Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, fatigued, sir?" says Cobbs. "Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but, she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?" "I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. "What was it you?—" "I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them." Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross, "What should you think, sir," says Cobbs, "of a chamber candlestick? " The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up. Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight), about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on lying like a Trojan, about the pony. He told 'em that it did so unfort'nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But, that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it's getting in her eyes put her out. But, nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father. After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers—at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire- place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell—it was surprising how that there boy did carry on—and said in a sprightly way, "Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?" "Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane." "Get out with you, Cobbs!"—that was that there boy's expression—"you're joking." "Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior." "Norah, dear," said Master Harry, "this is curious. We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs." Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallerd him up; he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a-looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drownded himself in half a moment more, a-getting out a water-lily for her—but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. Boots don't know—perhaps I do—but never mind, it don't signify either way—why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep, as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or else To-mor-row, and never To-day, that's where it is! Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots: namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses Junior's temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he "teased her so;" and when he says, "Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?" she tells him, "Yes; and I want to go home!" A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated. About eleven or twelve at night, comes back the Governor in a chaise, along with Mr Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, "We are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray ma'am, where is my boy?" Our missis says, "Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!" Then, he says to Cobbs, "Ah Cobbs! I am glad to see you. I understood you was here! " And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir." I may be surprised to hear Boots say it perhaps; but, Boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up stairs. "I beg your pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door; "I hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For, Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." And Boots signifies to me, that if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and taken the consequences. But, Mr. Walmers only says, "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!" And, the door being opened, goes in. Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. Then, he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. "Harry, my dear boy! Harry!" Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. "I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home." "Yes, Pa." Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands at last, a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet image of him. "Please may I"—the spirit of that litlle creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down! "—Please dear Pa—may I—kiss Norah, before I go?" "You may, my child." So, he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom: where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior is fast asleep. There, the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, and gently draws it to him—a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out "It's a shame to part 'em!" But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior that was never to be, (she married a Captain, long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions; firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married, who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back separately. I could scarcely believe, when I came to the last word of the foregoing recital and finished it off with a flourish, as I am apt to do when I make an end of any writing, that I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly on my hands, and the Holly-Tree, so bare at first, had borne so many berries for me, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. The road had been dug out of the snow, on the previous day, and the document in question was my Bill. It testified, emphatically, to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept, among the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights. I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, "at eight o'clock to-morrow evening." It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening, when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling on, to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farm-house where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do, was, to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in. I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends—almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too—and was standing for half a minute at the Inn-door, watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but, all of us who were standing at the Inn-door, saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up, on either side of the track. The chamber- maid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler: "Tom, this is a Gretna job!" The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard, bawling, "Next four out!" and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion. I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved; and, therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the Inn-door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it was Edwin! "Charley!" said he, recoiling. "Gracious powers, what do you do here?" "Edwin, "said I, recoiling, "Gracious powers, what do you do here!" I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. He hurried me into the little parlor (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to; and, shutting the door, said: "Charley, forgive me!" "Edwin!" I returned. "Was this well? When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!" I could say no more. He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart. I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. ''My dear, dear Charley," said he; "don't think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secresy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But, I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake." He and his dear girl! It steeled me. "You have observed it for my sake, sir?" said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so. "Yes!—and Angela's," said he. I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a laboring humming-top. "Explain yourself,'' said I, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair. "Dear old darling Charley!" returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, "consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honorably to say, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' If Angela suspected it and showed me all the favor and support she could—God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!—I couldn't help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!" Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father's ward. Had property. "Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin?" said I, embracing him with the greatest affection. "My good fellow!" said he, "Do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her!" I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape; but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note a-piece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt. I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven—I mean Edwin's and Emmeline's, whose eldest girl is old enough now to wear white fur herself, and to look very like her mother in it—come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Holly-Tree Inn (1855 Christmas Number) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855-12-15 Type The nature or genre of the resource Christmas Number Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles et. al. The Holly-Tree Inn (15 December 1855). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https:www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn">https:www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1855-12-15-The_HollyTree_Inn</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words, Vol. XII, Extra Christmas Number, 15 December 1855, pp. 1-36. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-573.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-573.html</a>. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-590.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-590.html</a>. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-607.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-xii/page-607.html</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Scanned material from Dickens Journals Online, <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. Available under CC BY licence. Table Of Contents A list of subunits of the resource. <ul> <li>Charles Dickens. 'The Guest' (No.1), pp. 1-9.</li> <li>Wilkie Collins. 'The Ostler' (No.2), pp. 9-18.</li> <li>Charles Dickens. 'The Boots' (No.3), pp. 18-22.</li> <li>William Howitt. 'The Landlord' (No.4), pp. 22-30.</li> <li>Adelaide Anne Procter. 'The Barmaid' (No.5), pp. 30-31.</li> <li>Harriet Parr. 'The Poor Pensioner' (No.6), pp. 31-35.</li> <li>Charles Dickens. 'The Bill' (No.7), pp. 35-36.</li> </ul> Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I have kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bashful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did suppose it. But, I am naturally a bashful man. This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. I might greatly move the reader, by some account of the innumerable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely because I am by original constitution and character, a bashful man. But, I will leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me. That object is, to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in the Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and beast, I was once snowed up. It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela Leath whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself, and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive them both. It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America—on my way to the Devil. Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall;—I say, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I could, with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned. The dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for ever, at five o'clock in the morning. I had shaved by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general all- pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged, which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances. How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of the Temple! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers, trotting, to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such customers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name), on the further borders of Yorkshire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at a farm-house in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought to explain, that to avoid being sought out before my resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, lamenting that urgent business of which she should know all particulars by- and-by—took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days. There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were stage-coaches: which I occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet Street was, to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this coach. But, when one of our Temple watchmen who carried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge blocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having closed up in the night and made a walk from the Temple Gardens over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, Whether the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my unhappiness? I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. When I got up to the Peacock—where I found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation—I asked, if there were an inside seat to spare? I then discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. When I was seated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey. It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, pale uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting their fires; smoke was mounting straight up, high into the rarefied air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse-troughs at roadside Inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged about, doors were close shut, little turnpike-houses had blazing fires inside, and children (even turnpike-people have children, and seem to like them), rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don't know when the snow began to set in; but, I know that we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark, "That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day." Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick. The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out as a lonely traveller does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking—particularly after dinner; cold and depressed at all other times. I was always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus, Auld Lang Syne, without a moment's intermission. They kept the time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves without being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up—which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. All night long, we went on in this manner. Thus, we came round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. I forget now, where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought to have been; but, I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The drift was becoming prodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the fields were all one; instead of having fences and hedgerows to guide us, we went crunching on, over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hill-side. Still, the coachman and guard—who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking well about them—made out the track with astonishing sagacity. When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with snow, and the Inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As to the coach, it was a mere snowball; similarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end, turning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us, was a snowy Saharah. One would have thought this enough; notwithstanding which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing. We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change. They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear's in a single minute: "What Inn is this?" "The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. "Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically to the guard and coachman, "that I must stop here." Now, the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the postboy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on? The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through it"—meaning by Her, the coach—"if so be as George would stand by him." George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So, the helpers were already getting the horses out. My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received the approval, even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being froze—ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good night and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree, up-stairs. I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose), engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me, roasting whole before an immense fire. My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase, at the end of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. It was them grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass—what I may call a wavy glass—above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my anterior phrenological developments—and these never look well, in any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on being looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten curtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a nest of gigantic worms. I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other men of similar character in themselves; therefore I am emboldened to mention, that when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail, my arrangements for departure in the morning. Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if needful, even four. Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In cases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green. What had I to do with Gretna Green? I was not going that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked, in my bitterness. In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by laborers from the market-town. When they might cut their way to the Holly-Tree, nobody could tell me. It was now Christmas Eve. I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of it anywhere, and, consequently, that did not so much matter; still, being snowed up, was, like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it very much), than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shame-faced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree disconcerting to them. Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked what books there were in the house? The waiter brought me a Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-book terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but I read them through again; then tried to hum all the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the jokes—in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of mind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but Stock advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me. I stirred the fire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen—not daring to go far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me—I could hear it growling—and began. My first impressions of an Inn, dated from the Nursery; consequently, I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose speciality was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed; and when the visitor (oppressed with pie), had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which purpose he had coppers underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not insensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep without being heard to mutter, "Too much pepper!"—which was eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another, of the same period, whose profession was, originally, housebreaking; in the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one night as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid was married to the land-lord of a country Inn: which landlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, and never would, on any consideration, take it off. At last, one night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon which, she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was taken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and Agnes or the Bleeding Nun. She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was immensely rich—which my father was not; and immensely tall—which my father was not. It was always a point with this Ghoule to present my dearest relations and friends to my youthful mind, under circumstances of disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once, through a forest, on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there? She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, "Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!" Upon which, one of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morning. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich tall brother-in-law went up to bed; but, he was rather vexed, because they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in a corner which the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door, saw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger, that long (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of an hour. These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated—coloured with a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then, I remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation, that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddlebags, but had been stricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it, as long as I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the fair Imogene. There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign—the Mitre—and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction—but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet. "To be continued, to-morrow," said I, when I took my candle to go to bed. But, my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep, a curious experience I had really had there. More than a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes, as still living; sometimes, as returning from the world of shadows to comfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy; never in association with any approach to fear or distress. It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down by my fire, to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear lost one. But, in the letter that I wrote, I recorded the circumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a question I had asked, touching the Future Life. My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice, in the deep stillness of the night, calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the dead; it being All Souls Eve. To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances. That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my lattice window, came moaning at me from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a supernaturally-preserved Druid, I believe him to have been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking afar off: who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to be ever watching for the re-appearance on the verge of the horizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then stood in the centre and said "I dare!" would behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pretended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He was out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but, the bustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west. This weird man at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep- walker, or an enthusiast, or a robber; but, I awoke one night to find him in the dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible precipitation. That was not a common-place story which worked itself out at a little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a very homely place, in a village of one narrow, zig-zag street among mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms: which were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering—like rough packing-cases. Outside, there was nothing but the straggling street, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to this Inn, had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-laborer had heard no movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said "Louis, where is Henri?" They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, outside this Inn there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but, the stack belonging to the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest house and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the livestock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went on—six weeks—and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning he was seen by a woman who sat nursing her goitre at a little window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon, the woman, with a sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, "Seize Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!" I saw the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A heavy animal—the dullest animal in the stables— with a stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that they had got hold of him and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton the headsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold in a little market-place. In that instant, a great sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), swept round him like a gust of wind, or fire, and there was no such creature in the world. My wonder was—not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs and tail; while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks; and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc, Mount Blank—except one good-humored gentle- man, of a very sociable nature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as " Blank; " observing at breakfast, " Blank looks pretty tall this morning; " or considerably doubting in the court-yard in the evening, whether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start—now! Once, I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort—an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal, to put the pie on the table. After some days, I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a power orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result—but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled. The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window. Here, I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived at my winter quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took another Inn. It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners' Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away; and I had the honor of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady or gentleman on perusal of the present lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging about his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing- rein into the heart of a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes. Over and above which, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-horse—though to get rid of that noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all parties. But, the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host was a chairmaker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at supper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my frame, like a Clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five times by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon. The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry me on until I was dug out. I might be a week here—weeks! There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I once passed a night at, in a picturesque old town on the Welch border. In a large, double-bedded room of this Inn, there had been a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other constantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far off, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an impression that he smelt Laudanum; and that his mind always turned upon the subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it—bed, hangings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story), now changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The occupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning his perplexity, would suggest various common-place subjects, not one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But the moment the landlord suggested "Poison," the traveller started, and cried "Yes!" He never failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of the dream. This reminiscence brought the Welch Inns in general, before me; with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whiskey, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. Once, was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect for the horses: which horses were away picking up their own living, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought of the loch-trout I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling, by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the greatest perseverance: which I have generally found to be as effectual towards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science); and to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bed-rooms of those inns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the country bridge; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural grace that would have converted Blue Beard. Casting my eyes upon my Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals, tlie pictures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke or even Windsor to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled laborers and wanderers bivouacing in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the rooms where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to Irish lodgers at eighteen-pence a-week; a little ill-looking beer-shop shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for fire-wood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received punishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the door-way. What could I next see in my fire, so naturally, as the new railway- house of these times near the dismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no business doing, beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall? Then, I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty appartement of four pieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body but your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next, to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute when by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser road-side Inns of Italy; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your ante-room; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can, and forget what you can't; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a tea-pot. So, to the old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same bright country; with their massive quadrangular stair-cases whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of Heaven; with their stately banqueting- rooms, and vast refectories; with their labyrinths of ghostly bed-chambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of reality or possibility. So, to the close little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of never letting in the air. So, to the immense fantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the corner; the grip of the watery odors on one particular little bit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay there); and the great bell of St. Mark's Cathedral tolling midnight. Next, I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up; and where, in the table d'hôte room at the end of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely drest in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows and the grape that grows and Rhine wine that beguiles and Rhine woman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are sodden down to the same flavor, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of hot puddings, and boiled cherries sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred beds a-piece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day. Again, I stood in the bar-rooms bar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again, I listened to my friend the General—whom I had known for five minutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians—again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the resources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir; ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-room, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room, sir; music-room, sir; reading room, sir; over four-hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and the entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the first clearing off of the old incumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous, the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians, all; full-well knowing that whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and great people. I had been going on lately, at a quick pace, to keep my solitude out of my mind; but, here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject. What was I to do? What was to become of me? Into what extremity was I submissively to sink? Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by training it? Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circumstances I should have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me from the landlord's table and the company I might find there, as to make acquaintance, under various pretences, with some of the inmates of the house, singly—with the object of getting from each, either a whole autobiography, or a passage or experience in one, with which I could cheat the tardy time: first of all by seeking out, then by listening to, then by remembering and writing down? Could I, I asked myself, so far overcome my retiring nature as to do this. I could. I would. I did. The results of this conception I proceed to give, in the exact order in which I attained them. I began my plan of operations at once, and, by slow approaches and after overcoming many obstacles (all of my own making, I believe), reached the story of: Where had he been in his time? he repeated when I asked him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere! And what had he been? Bless you, he had been everything you could mention a'most. Seen a good deal? Why, of course he had. I should say so, he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he hadn't seen, than what he had. Ah! A deal, it would. What was the curiousest thing he had seen? Well! He didn't know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen—unless it was a Unicorn—and he see him once, at a Fair. But, supposing a young gentleman not eight year old, was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think that a queer start? Certainly?Then, that was a start as he himself had had his blessed eyes on—and he had cleaned the shoes they run away in—and they was so little that he couldn't get his hand into 'em. Master Harry Walmers's father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven mile from Lunnon. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him, neither. He was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy books, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left but the name, and that: still he kept the command over the child, and the child was a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was! How did Boots happen to know all this? Why, through being under-gardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family.—Even supposing Master Harry hadn't come to him one morning early, and said, "Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was asked?" and then begun cutting it in print, all over the fence. He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that; but, really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy! Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one and she had been frightened of him. One day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the, gravel, and says—speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like you." "Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know, Master Harry, I am sure." "Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." Indeed, sir? That's very gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better than millions of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by Norah." "Certainly, sir." "You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes sir." "Would you like another situation, Cobbs? " "Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a good 'un." "Then, Cobbs," says he, "you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married." And he tucks her, in her little sky blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a play, to see them babies with their long bright curling hair, their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em. Sometimes, they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince, and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. Sometimes, he would hear them planning about having a house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and honey. Once, he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." And Boots made no question he would have done it, if she hadn't complied. On the whole, Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself—only he didn't exactly know who with. "Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the flowers; " I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my grandmamma's at York." "Are you indeed, sir? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I am going into Yorkshire myself, when I leave here." "Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" "No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." "Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?" "No, sir." The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers, for a little while, and then said, "I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs—Norah's going." "You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, "with your beautiful sweetheart by your side." "Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing. "I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them." "It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs with humility, "—wasn't so meant." "I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going to live with us.—Cobbs!" "Sir." "What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?" "I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." "A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." "Whew! " says Cobbs, " that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry." "A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn't a person, Cobbs?" "I believe you, sir!" "Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!" "Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with "Good-night, Cobbs. I'm going in." If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now, if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then and he wanted change. That's what he wanted—change. Mr. Walmers, he said, to him when he give him notice of his intentions to leave, "Cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I find that any of my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can." "No, sir," says Cobbs; "thanking you, sir, I find myself as well sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, that I'm a going to seek my fortun." "O, indeed, Cobbs?" he says; " I hope you may find it." And Boots could assure me—which he did, touching his hair with his boot-jack, as a salute in the way of his present—calling that he hadn't found it yet. Well, sir! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry he went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so wrapt up in him. What does that Infant do—for Infant you may call him and be within the mark—but cut away from that old lady's with his Norah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married! Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several times since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says to our Governor, "I don't quite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words was, that they was to be brought here." The young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, "We're to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bed-rooms will be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two!" and tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much bolder than Brass. Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was, when those two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into the Angel;—much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon. "Cobbs," says the Governor, "if this is so, I must set off myself to York and quiet their friends' minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humour 'em, till I come back. But, before I take these measures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your opinions is correct." "Sir to you," says Cobbs, "that shall be done directly." So, Boots goes upstairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on a e-normous sofa—immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him—a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket hankecher. Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them children looked. "It's Cobbs! It's Cobbs!" cries Master Harry, and comes running to him and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes running to him on t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. "I see you a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. "I thought it was you. I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. What's the object of your journey, sir?—Matrimonial? "We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returned the boy. "We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in rather low spirits, Cobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend." "Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss," says Cobbs, "for your good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir?" If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush—seemingly, a doll's. The gentleman had got about half-a-dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it. "What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? " says Cobbs. "To go on," replied the boy—which the courage of that boy was something wonder-ful!—"in the morning, and be married to-morrow." "Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to accompany you?" When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, "O yes, yes, Cobbs! Yes!" "Well, sir," say a Cobbs. "If you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend would be this. I'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at all short, that don't signify; because I'm a part proprietor of this inn, and it could stand over." Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy again, and called him "Good Cobbs!" and "Dear Cobbs!" and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em, that ever was born. "Is there anything you want just at present, sir?" says Cobbs, mortally ashamed of himself. "We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, "and two apples—and jam. With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water. But, Norah has always been accustomed to haIf a, glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I." "It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs; and away he went. Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking, as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds with the Governor, than have combined with him; and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for York in half-an-hour. The way in which the women of that house—without exception—every one of 'em—married and single—took to that boy when they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at the key-hole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold spirit. In the evening, Boots went into the room, to see how the runaway couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder, "Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, fatigued, sir?" says Cobbs. "Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but, she is not used to be away from home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think you could bring a biffin, please?" "I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. "What was it you?—" "I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very fond of them." Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and took a little himself. The lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross, "What should you think, sir," says Cobbs, "of a chamber candlestick? " The gentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase; the lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up. Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight), about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on lying like a Trojan, about the pony. He told 'em that it did so unfort'nately happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But, that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's view of the whole case, looking back upon it in my room, is, that Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it's getting in her eyes put her out. But, nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own father. After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed soldiers—at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire- place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the bell—it was surprising how that there boy did carry on—and said in a sprightly way, "Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?" "Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane." "Get out with you, Cobbs!"—that was that there boy's expression—"you're joking." "Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love Lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior." "Norah, dear," said Master Harry, "this is curious. We really ought to see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go there with Cobbs." Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that young pair told him, they all three jogged along together, that they had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em. Boots could have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallerd him up; he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a-looking at him, and believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there Master Harry would have drownded himself in half a moment more, a-getting out a water-lily for her—but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep. Boots don't know—perhaps I do—but never mind, it don't signify either way—why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself, to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep, as they done when they was awake. But, Lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or else To-mor-row, and never To-day, that's where it is! Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to Boots: namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses Junior's temper was on the move. When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he "teased her so;" and when he says, "Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry tease you?" she tells him, "Yes; and I want to go home!" A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up a little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master Harry he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated. About eleven or twelve at night, comes back the Governor in a chaise, along with Mr Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, "We are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray ma'am, where is my boy?" Our missis says, "Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty!" Then, he says to Cobbs, "Ah Cobbs! I am glad to see you. I understood you was here! " And Cobbs says, "Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir." I may be surprised to hear Boots say it perhaps; but, Boots assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up stairs. "I beg your pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door; "I hope you are not angry with Master Harry. For, Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." And Boots signifies to me, that if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and taken the consequences. But, Mr. Walmers only says, "No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. Thank you!" And, the door being opened, goes in. Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face. Then, he stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. "Harry, my dear boy! Harry!" Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Cobbs too. Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has brought him into trouble. "I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself and come home." "Yes, Pa." Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands at last, a-looking at his father; his father standing a-looking at him, the quiet image of him. "Please may I"—the spirit of that litlle creatur, and the way he kept his rising tears down! "—Please dear Pa—may I—kiss Norah, before I go?" "You may, my child." So, he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom: where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior is fast asleep. There, the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior, and gently draws it to him—a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them calls out "It's a shame to part 'em!" But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady and Mrs. Harry Walmers Junior that was never to be, (she married a Captain, long afterwards, and died in India), went off next day. In conclusion, Boots puts it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions; firstly, that there are not many couples on their way to be married, who are half as innocent of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could only be stopped in time and brought back separately. I could scarcely believe, when I came to the last word of the foregoing recital and finished it off with a flourish, as I am apt to do when I make an end of any writing, that I had been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so lightly on my hands, and the Holly-Tree, so bare at first, had borne so many berries for me, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. The road had been dug out of the snow, on the previous day, and the document in question was my Bill. It testified, emphatically, to my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept, among the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights. I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself, finding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion of my task. I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to be at the door, "at eight o'clock to-morrow evening." It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening, when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained for my travelling on, to add a frozen tear to the icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farm-house where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do, was, to get across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time to do it in. I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends—almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness too—and was standing for half a minute at the Inn-door, watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but, all of us who were standing at the Inn-door, saw lamps coming on, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up, on either side of the track. The chamber- maid instantly divined how the case stood, and called to the ostler: "Tom, this is a Gretna job!" The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard, bawling, "Next four out!" and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion. I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was beloved; and, therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the Inn-door when the fugitives drove up. A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it was Edwin! "Charley!" said he, recoiling. "Gracious powers, what do you do here?" "Edwin, "said I, recoiling, "Gracious powers, what do you do here!" I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. He hurried me into the little parlor (always kept with a slow fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were putting to; and, shutting the door, said: "Charley, forgive me!" "Edwin!" I returned. "Was this well? When I loved her so dearly! When I had garnered up my heart so long!" I could say no more. He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to heart. I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. ''My dear, dear Charley," said he; "don't think ill of me, I beseech you! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secresy. Its meanness is intolerable to me. But, I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake." He and his dear girl! It steeled me. "You have observed it for my sake, sir?" said I, wondering how his frank face could face it out so. "Yes!—and Angela's," said he. I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a laboring humming-top. "Explain yourself,'' said I, holding on by one hand to an arm-chair. "Dear old darling Charley!" returned Edwin, in his cordial manner, "consider! When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret intention? Surely it was better that you should be able honorably to say, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' If Angela suspected it and showed me all the favor and support she could—God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!—I couldn't help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth!" Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been brought up with her. Was her father's ward. Had property. "Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin?" said I, embracing him with the greatest affection. "My good fellow!" said he, "Do you suppose I should be going to Gretna Green without her!" I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in soft white fur, like the snowy landscape; but was warm, and young, and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note a-piece, I cheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt. I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven—I mean Edwin's and Emmeline's, whose eldest girl is old enough now to wear white fur herself, and to look very like her mother in it—come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly fail to be found out at last. Never mind! I can bear it. I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Sheffield Venue Where the speech was given Mechanics' Hall Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Mr. Mayor, I beg to assure you, and those gentlemen who are associated with you in this kind gift, that I accept with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of the work of your famous town. The kind expressions with which you have accompanied this presentation, and the response which they have received from the assembly, will never be obliterated from my memory. You have heard my voice so much tonight that out of pure forbearance I will not say more than to assure you that these things shall be heirlooms in my family. They will be prized by those who love me as testifying not only to the work of Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that to the earnestness of my aim and desire to do right by my readers, and to leave our imaginative and popular literature more closely associated than I found it at once with the private homes and public rights of the English people, I shall ever be faithful – to my death – in the principles which have won your approval. Allow me to take a reluctant leave, wishing you, one and all, many many merry Christmases, and many, many happy new years. Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18551222 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource After Reading in Sheffield Description An account of the resource After a reading of A Christmas Carol in Sheffield (22 December 1855) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1855-12-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'After Reading in Sheffield' (22 December 1855). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1855-12-22_Speech_After-Reading-in-Sheffield</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Mr. Mayor, I beg to assure you, and those gentlemen who are associated with you in this kind gift, that I accept with heartfelt delight and cordial gratitude such beautiful specimens of the work of your famous town. The kind expressions with which you have accompanied this presentation, and the response which they have received from the assembly, will never be obliterated from my memory. You have heard my voice so much tonight that out of pure forbearance I will not say more than to assure you that these things shall be heirlooms in my family. They will be prized by those who love me as testifying not only to the work of Sheffield hands, but to the warmth and generosity of Sheffield hearts. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that to the earnestness of my aim and desire to do right by my readers, and to leave our imaginative and popular literature more closely associated than I found it at once with the private homes and public rights of the English people, I shall ever be faithful – to my death – in the principles which have won your approval. Allow me to take a reluctant leave, wishing you, one and all, many many merry Christmases, and many, many happy new years. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Prologue/Prologue_The_Frozen_Deep.png 3cdc6eebfcc1bbac35efe6cf113a7463 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Verse Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together the most complete set of Dickens's verse to date, supplementing the work of existing editions with previously uncollected poems Dickens contributed to albums, or wrote anonymously.</h4> Though such productions receive scant attention from scholars interested in his fiction and journalism, Dickens composed a surprising amount of verse. It was a genre in which he evidently felt much less at home (and financially rewarded) than when writing in prose. However, several poems gained popular favour during his lifetime; that so many were <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Song">written to be set to music</a> indicates the permeable boundary between metered verse functioning as poem or song in the nineteenth century, and may explain why some of Dickens’s poems were more enduringly popular than others. Notably, <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1836-05_Pickwick_Papers_The_Ivy_Green">'The Ivy Green'</a> from Pickwick Papers (1837), a story of time’s inexorable passing, was frequently republished in newspapers. Several poems written to young ladies of Dickens’s acquaintance are released on Dickens Search as part of the author’s poetic output for the first time, testifying to the author’s ability to write impromptu poetry and gallantly turn a phrase. Since keeping <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Autograph+Album&collection=&type=&tags=&date_search_term=&submit_search=Search+For+Items">autograph albums</a> was a popular pastime for women in the Victorian era, it is possible that further examples of such activity remain to be discovered in various archives and private collections. When writing <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?search=&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Letter&collection=3&type=&tags=&date_search_term=&submit_search=Search+For+Items">letters</a> to friends, Dickens occasionally included comedic poems for the recipient. Several of these are included. Considering the enormity of Dickens’s correspondence, likely more instances of this sort of poetic humour will result over time. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Epitaph">Epitaphs</a> Dickens wrote for friends and family, whether used or not, are included with Dickens's other verse for the first time. Users can also browse <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=94&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Play">verse from Dickens's plays</a>, including songs removed from The Strange Gentleman and Is She His Wife? Or, Something Singular! before performance. Care is necessary when verifying the accuracy of these poems, as some are misattributed to Dickens. Widespread reprintings of 'Dickens poems' in nineteenth-century newspapers are insufficient evidence for authorial attribution, owing to the mistakes intentionally or inadvertently made in ascribing authorship. An unusual example of a poem that is and is not by Dickens, the lines of 'Little Nell’s Funeral' are taken, with minimal alterations, from Chapter 72 of The Old Curiosity Shop. An instance of the strikingly lyrical quality of Dickens’s sentimental prose, they were divided into metered, unrhymed verse by M.A.H. for the 1849 collection Echoes of Infant Voices. Because Dickens did not intend for this passage to be structured in verse form, the poem is not included in the poetry collection of Dickens Search. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/poetry-dickens-didnt-write">Read our blog post for more on poetry Dickens didn't write.</a> Occasionally, Dickens will quote a poem by another author, as in his burlesque Is She his Wife? Or, Something Singular! (1836). The character Mr Felix Tapkins launches into a short hunting song beginning 'The wife around her husband throws/Her arms to make him stay'. As William Chappell noted in 1840, this is a well-known variant of 'A Hunting We Will Go' (1777), by Thomas Arne, though he misattributes its composition to Henry Fielding. Previous notable collections of some of Dickens's poetry include The Plays and Poems of Charles Dickens (1882) edited by Richard Herne Shepherd and The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens (1903) edited by Frederic G. Kitton. In 2025, we published <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-verse-of-charles-dickens.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Verse of Charles Dickens</a> (Edinburgh University Press), which includes an introduction and editorial apparatus for this verse.  Caution has been taken when ascertaining that each poem is indeed by Dickens. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or other poems written by Dickens. 1. The Verse of Charles Dickens. Edited by Lydia Craig and Emily Middleton. Edinburgh University Press, 2025; Robert Butterworth. 'The Hymn of the Wiltshire Labourers.' The Dickensian 516.118.1 (Spring 2022): pp. 43-56; Eva-Charlotta Mebius. 'Dreams of Dying Girls: The Poetry of Thomas J. Ouseley and Charles Dickens.' Dickens Quarterly 34.3 (September 2017): pp. 256-261; Robert C. Hanna. 'Before Boz; The Juvenilia and Early Writings of Charles Dickens, 1820-1833'. Dickens Studies Annual 40 (2009): pp. 231-364. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context verse Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig; Emily Middleton Poem Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18560101 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. (Curtain rises; mists and darkness’ soft music throughout.) One savage footprint on the lonely shore Where one man listen’d to the surge’s roar, Not all the winds that stir the mighty sea Can ever ruffle in the memory. If such its interest and thrall, O then Pause on the footprints of heroic men, Making a garden of the desert wide Where Parry conquer’d death and Franklin died. To that white region where the Lost lie low, Wrapt in their mantles of eternal snow, - Unvisited by change, nothing to mock Those statues sculptured in the icy rock, We pray your company; that hearts as true (Though nothings of the air) may live for you; Nor only yet that on our little glass A faint reflection of those wilds may pass, But that the secrets of the vast Profound Within us, an exploring hand may sound, Testing the region of the ice-bound soul, Seeking the passage at its northern pole, Softening the horrors of its wintry sleep, Melting the surface of that ‘Frozen Deep.’ Vanish, ye mists! But ere this gloom departs, And to the union of three sister arts We give a winter evening, good to know That in the charms of such another show, That in the fiction of a friendly play, The Arctic sailors, too, put gloom away, Forgot their long night, saw no starry dome, Hail’d the warm sun, and were again at Home. Vanish, ye mists! Not yet do we repair To the still country of the piercing air; But seek, before the cross the troubled seas, An English hearth and Devon’s waving trees. Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Play Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Frozen Deep TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Prologue.' The Frozen Deep (1856).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Prologue' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Volume 20 of The Works of Charles Dickens (1911). London: Chapman and Hall; pp. 486-487, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=The%20frozen%20deep" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Charles_Dickens/91s4AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=The%20frozen%20deep</a>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Chapman and Hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856 Type The nature or genre of the resource Prologue Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Prologue' to The Frozen Deep (1856), co-author Wilkie Collins. Printed in Volume 20 of The Works of Charles Dickens (1911). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue">https://dickenssearch.com/verse/1856_The_Frozen_Deep_Prologue</a>. Description An account of the resource Prologue to The Frozen Deep (1856), co-author Wilkie Collins. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. (Curtain rises; mists and darkness’ soft music throughout.) One savage footprint on the lonely shore Where one man listen’d to the surge’s roar, Not all the winds that stir the mighty sea  Can ever ruffle in the memory. If such its interest and thrall, O then Pause on the footprints of heroic men, Making a garden of the desert wide Where Parry conquer’d death and Franklin died. To that white region where the Lost lie low, Wrapt in their mantles of eternal snow, -  Unvisited by change, nothing to mock Those statues sculptured in the icy rock, We pray your company; that hearts as true (Though nothings of the air) may live for you; Nor only yet that on our little glass A faint reflection of those wilds may pass, But that the secrets of the vast Profound  Within us, an exploring hand may sound, Testing the region of the ice-bound soul, Seeking the passage at its northern pole, Softening the horrors of its wintry sleep, Melting the surface of that ‘Frozen Deep.’ Vanish, ye mists! But ere this gloom departs, And to the union of three sister arts We give a winter evening, good to know That in the charms of such another show, That in the fiction of a friendly play, The Arctic sailors, too, put gloom away, Forgot their long night, saw no starry dome, Hail’d the warm sun, and were again at Home. Vanish, ye mists! Not yet do we repair To the still country of the piercing air; But seek, before the cross the troubled seas, An English hearth and Devon’s waving trees. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/Manchester_Free_Trade_Hall_[founded_1856]/m51890.jpg 11d7ea4db835fd74f13c027daa66fecb Place Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given Free Trade Hall Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Manchester Free Trade Hall (founded 1856) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context place-manchester-free-trade-hall Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856 manchester Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Royal Literary Fund Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18560312 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Sir, I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell – who, in the profession of literature, represents upon this Committee a separate and distinct branch of the profession, that like: The last rose of summer Stands blooming alone, His lovely companions All faded and gone, – into the very ingenious maze of bramble-bushes with which he has contrived to beset this question. In the remarks I have to make I shall confine myself to four points. One, that it would appear from Mr. Bell's speech that the Committee find themselves in the painful condition of not spending enough money, and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending more. Two, that with regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious, was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and which the administrators of the Fund decline to recognize. Three, that with respect to Mr. Bell’s endeavours to remove the Artists’ Benevolent Fund from the ground of analogy which it unquestionably occupies in reference to the Literary Fund, by alleging that it continually relieves the same people, I beg to say that Mr. Bell, as well as every gentleman sitting at that table, knows perfectly well, that it is the business of this Fund to relieve the same people over and over again; and, indeed, I hold in my hand a report for 1855, from which I find out that out of forty-eight cases relieved, thirty were those of persons relieved from the second to the tenth time.  I can only oppose to that statement my own experience when I sat on that committee, and when I have known persons relieved, as a matter of course, on many consecutive applications, without further inquiry being made. As to the suggestion that we should select the particular items of expenditure that we complain of, I think it is according to all experience that we should first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too large. If that be done by the meeting, then I will immediately proceed to the selection of the separate items. Now, in rising to support this resolution, I may state at once that I have scarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy to think it will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of the resolution's case that it should not be carried, for it would be impossible to convey to the public a more convincing proof of mismanagement, and the determination of the managers to mismanage it to the death, than would be involved in the recital for the second time within twelve months, that the attention of the Committee had been called to the incontrovertible facts of its great expenditure, and that at the same time the Committee had asserted that it considered the expenses were not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger case for the responsibility of the reform urged for the second time and I rejoice that this statement of facts  and the assertion that the expenses are not unreasonable will go forth together. Now, to separate this question from details, let us remember what the Committee and their supporters asserted last year, and I hope will reassert this year: that it was rather a model kind of thing than otherwise now, that if you get £100 you are to spend £40 in management; and if you get £1000, of course you may spend £400 in giving the rest away. Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned people here, who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly respectable place of resort, Willis’s Rooms, in St. James’s, to a Special General meeting of this Corporation, for the purpose of hearing and seeing all I could, and saying as little as I could prevail on myself not to say. Allowing for the absence of the younger and fairer portion of the female sex, the general appearance of the place was very much like Almack’s in the morning. A number of stately old dowagers were ranged in a row on one side, and old gentlemen sat on the other. The ball was opened with due solemnity by a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the Secretary, at which the audience were much affected. Then another party advanced, who, I am sorry to say, was only a member of the House of Commons – but a gentleman highly connected – and he gracefully took the floor. To him, however, succeeded a distinguished lord, then a bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord; after which the minor church rose, with a member of the Stock Exchange and the Bar; and, at last, in an interval of the theatricals, a man more immediately connected with Literature, though not of course considered very respectable, was allowed to step in and sustain the part of Pangloss, in the adventures of Candide, and delight the audience by explaining that this was the best of all possible societies, conducted under the best of all possible managements, at the least of all possible expenditure from the best of all possible funds. It is in these things – it is in our fondness for being so stupendously genteel, by keeping up such a fashionable appearance, by giving way to the vulgar and common social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price – that the money goes. Why, sir, the very last distinguished writer of fiction whom you caught for your public dinner, told you, in return for drinking his health, somewhere towards the small hours of the morning, that he felt like the servant in plush who is permitted to sweep the stage down, when there are no more great people to come on; and  I myself, at a dinner some twelve years ago, felt like a sort of Rip Van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years; and, waking, found that Literature instead of being emancipated, had to endure all manner of aristocratic patrons, and was lying at the feet of people who did nothing for it, instead of standing alone and appealing to the public for support. Why, this Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for show, and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.) When one enters the house it appears to be haunted by a series of mysterious looking ghosts, who glide about in some extraordinary occupation; and, after the approved fashion of ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What are all these meeting and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I say, as a writer by profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have a far better knowledge of the cases coming before the board than can ever be attained by that Committee. Further, I say openly and plainly, that this Fund is pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of being quietly administered at small expense: and that the secrecy to which it lays claim as its great attribute, is not kept; for through those ‘two respectable householders’, to whom reference must be made to enlighten the ignorance of the Committee, the names of the most deserving applicants leak out, and are, to numbers of people, perfectly well known. The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are unreasonable, or justifiable, becoming, and decent. I beg most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that they must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is, and what it is not – what it is for, and what it is not for. The question raised by the resolution is whether this is a public corporation for the relief of men of genius and learning, who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities or deprived by enfeebled faculties or declining life of the power of literary exertion; or whether it is a snug, traditional, and conventional party, bent upon maintaining its own usages with a vast amount of unnecessary parade, upon its own annual puffery at costly dinner tables, and upon a course of expensive toadying once every twelve months, to one or two members of the aristocracy, with a view to recruiting its finances. This is the question that you must decide today, and it is a question from which you cannot escape. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Literary Fund Annual General Meeting 1856 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Literary Fund Annual General Meeting (12 March 1856). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856-03-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1856-03-12_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Annual-General-Meeting Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal Literary Fund Annual General Meeting' (12 March 1856). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-12_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Annual-General-Meeting">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-12_Speech_Royal-Literary-Fund-Annual-General-Meeting</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Sir, I shall not attempt to follow my friend Mr. Bell – who, in the profession of literature, represents upon this Committee a separate and distinct branch of the profession, that like:   The last rose of summer   Stands blooming alone,   His lovely companions   All faded and gone,   – into the very ingenious maze of bramble-bushes with which he has contrived to beset this question. In the remarks I have to make I shall confine myself to four points. One, that it would appear from Mr. Bell's speech that the Committee find themselves in the painful condition of not spending enough money, and will presently apply themselves to the great reform of spending more. Two, that with regard to the house, it is a positive matter of history, that the house for which Mr. Williams was so anxious, was to be applied to uses to which it never has been applied, and which the administrators of the Fund decline to recognize. Three, that with respect to Mr. Bell’s endeavours to remove the Artists’ Benevolent Fund from the ground of analogy which it unquestionably occupies in reference to the Literary Fund, by alleging that it continually relieves the same people, I beg to say that Mr. Bell, as well as every gentleman sitting at that table, knows perfectly well, that it is the business of this Fund to relieve the same people over and over again; and, indeed, I hold in my hand a report for 1855, from which I find out that out of forty-eight cases relieved, thirty were those of persons relieved from the second to the tenth time.  I can only oppose to that statement my own experience when I sat on that committee, and when I have known persons relieved, as a matter of course, on many consecutive applications, without further inquiry being made. As to the suggestion that we should select the particular items of expenditure that we complain of, I think it is according to all experience that we should first affirm the principle that the expenditure is too large. If that be done by the meeting, then I will immediately proceed to the selection of the separate items.  Now, in rising to support this resolution, I may state at once that I have scarcely any expectation of its being carried, and I am happy to think it will not. Indeed, I consider it the strongest point of the resolution's case that it should not be carried, for it would be impossible to convey to the public a more convincing proof of mismanagement, and the determination of the managers to mismanage it to the death, than would be involved in the recital for the second time within twelve months, that the attention of the Committee had been called to the incontrovertible facts of its great expenditure, and that at the same time the Committee had asserted that it considered the expenses were not unreasonable. I cannot conceive a stronger case for the responsibility of the reform urged for the second time and I rejoice that this statement of facts and the assertion that the expenses are not unreasonable will go forth together. Now, to separate this question from details, let us remember what the Committee and their supporters asserted last year, and I hope will reassert this year: that it was rather a model kind of thing than otherwise now, that if you get £100 you are to spend £40 in management; and if you get £1000, of course you may spend £400 in giving the rest away. Now, in case there should be any ill-conditioned people here, who may ask what occasion there can be for all this expenditure, I will give you my experience. I went last year to a highly respectable place of resort, Willis’s Rooms, in St. James’s, to a Special General meeting of this Corporation, for the purpose of hearing and seeing all I could, and saying as little as I could prevail on myself not to say. Allowing for the absence of the younger and fairer portion of the female sex, the general appearance of the place was very much like Almack’s in the morning. A number of stately old dowagers were ranged in a row on one side, and old gentlemen sat on the other. The ball was opened with due solemnity by a real marquis, who walked a minuet with the Secretary, at which the audience were much affected. Then another party advanced, who, I am sorry to say, was only a member of the House of Commons –  but a gentleman highly connected – and he gracefully took the floor. To him, however, succeeded a distinguished lord, then a bishop, then the son of a distinguished lord; after which the minor church rose, with a member of the Stock Exchange and the Bar; and, at last, in an interval of the theatricals, a man more immediately connected with Literature, though not of course considered very respectable, was allowed to step in and sustain the part of Pangloss, in the adventures of Candide, and delight the audience by explaining that this was the best of all possible societies, conducted under the best of all possible managements, at the least of all possible expenditure from the best of all possible funds. It is in these things – it is in our fondness for being so stupendously genteel, by keeping up such a fashionable appearance, by giving way to the vulgar and common social vice of hanging on to great connexions at any price – that the money goes. Why, sir, the very last distinguished writer of fiction whom you caught for your public dinner, told you, in return for drinking his health, somewhere towards the small hours of the morning, that he felt like the servant in plush who is permitted to sweep the stage down, when there are no more great people to come on; and  I myself, at a dinner some twelve years ago, felt like a sort of Rip Van Winkle reversed, who had gone to sleep backwards for a hundred years; and, waking, found that Literature instead of being emancipated, had to endure all manner of aristocratic patrons, and was lying at the feet of people who did nothing for it, instead of standing alone and appealing to the public for support. Why, this Bloomsbury house is another part of the same desire for show, and the officer who inhabits it. (I mean, of course, in his official capacity, for, as an individual, I much respect him.) When one enters the house it appears to be haunted by a series of mysterious looking ghosts, who glide about in some extraordinary occupation; and, after the approved fashion of ghosts, but seldom condescend to disclose their business. What are all these meeting and inquiries wanted for? As for the authors, I say, as a writer by profession, that the long inquiry said to be necessary to ascertain whether an applicant deserves relief, is a preposterous pretence, and that working literary men would have a far better knowledge of the cases coming before the board than can ever be attained by that Committee. Further, I say openly and plainly, that this Fund is pompously and unnaturally administered at great expense, instead of being quietly administered at small expense: and that the secrecy to which it lays claim as its great attribute, is not kept; for through those ‘two respectable householders’, to whom reference must be made to enlighten the ignorance of the Committee, the names of the most deserving applicants leak out, and are, to numbers of people, perfectly well known.  The members have now got before them a plain statement of fact as to these charges; and it is for them to say whether they are unreasonable, or justifiable, becoming, and decent. I beg most earnestly and respectfully to put it to those gentlemen who belong to this institution, that they must now decide, and cannot help deciding, what the Literary Fund is, and what it is not – what it is for, and what it is not for. The question raised by the resolution is whether this is a public corporation for the relief of men of genius and learning, who may be reduced to distress by unavoidable calamities or deprived by enfeebled faculties or declining life of the power of literary exertion; or whether it is a snug, traditional, and conventional party, bent upon maintaining its own usages with a vast amount of unnecessary parade, upon its own annual puffery at costly dinner tables, and upon a course of expensive toadying once every twelve months, to one or two members of the aristocracy, with a view to recruiting its finances. This is the question that you must decide today, and it is a question from which you cannot escape.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Adelphi Theatre Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18560313 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Ladies and Gentlemen, My part in the proceedings of today I apprehend will not be so much to talk myself, as to be the cause of talk – and I trust of action also – in others. I shall merely endeavour to present to you as plain and just a summary as I can possibly make of the circumstances under which we are assembled together, being as careful as I possibly can not to trench upon the part of this day's proceedings which has been assigned to those distinguished gentlemen and ornaments of the theatrical profession by whom I have the honour to find myself surrounded. The ideas which most people about London associate with Dulwich College are, probably, of the very vaguest kind. They associate it chiefly, I dare say, with a charming gallery of interesting pictures – very freely and laudably open to the public – which pictures are seen with an unusual absence of glare and bustle; with pleasant gardens outside and a beautiful country, rich in all the attractions of Surrey and Kent. They have, I dare say, certain indistinct associations with some musty old men, in black gowns, all bearing the name of Alleyn, and an embowered college where, without blame to anyone, I dare say a snug thing or two has been transacted in the way of a good place, which we should all be very happy to get if we were only fortunate enough, and were ‘Alleyn’ enough to obtain it. They have probably no more distinct idea of the founder of Dulwich College than that he was rather an ancient personage, who lived many years ago, and who, somehow or other, bequeathed to posterity an excuse for passing an occasional pleasant holiday in a pretty country; and I make so bold to say for myself, if he had only done that for this working time, I think he would have done better service to it than is rendered by many majestic and noble personages of much loftier pretensions. But it becomes us, and the object for which we are here today, to look a little more closely into the history of Dulwich College, and in particular to ascertain whether he had any peculiar and close associations with the stage. He lived by the name of Edward Alleyn, and he lived too, in the days of a remarkable man who, though he died a commoner, who, though he was not honoured with a patent of nobility, nevertheless did the state some service – one William Shakespeare. His mother was the wife of an actor; he was himself bred to the stage; his brother  engaged in theatrical pursuits; he married the daughter of the wife of an actor, who was herself an actress. He was himself a famous actor, and a great and prosperous theatrical manager. He was the manager of the Rose Theatre, and afterwards of the Fortune Theatre, and besides which he had a very large share – supposed to have been purchased from Shakespeare himself – in the Blackfriars Theatre; he was also one of the two appointed Masters of the King's Games; and besides inheriting considerable property, he acquired by the actor’s art and the manager's enterprise a great deal of money. Retiring from the stage before he was fifty years old, and being already Lord of the Manor of Dulwich, he founded there a college for the maintenance and support of one master, one warden, four fellows, six old men, and six old women, and twelve boys to be educated in good literature. To this college, after its completion, he himself retired, and there, wearing its habiliments and conducting himself in observance of its rules, he lived-and there he died, and there was buried in the year 1626, when he was sixty years of age. Now, when his ashes have lain under the chapel of that institution for more than two hundred years, a certain useful and very much needed public body – called the Charity Commission – discovered that the endowment of this college was extremely rich, and capable of great extension-which extension they recommended to the Legislature. Hereupon up rises, true to his art and true to his trust, a great theatrical manager of our own times, who prays – always keeping within the proposed extensions – prays that one fourth of the benefits may be extended to poor players of both sexes, and also to the children of poor players. This appeal this gentleman makes in remembrance of the stage which Edward Alleyn embraced; in remembrance of the means by which he acquired fame and fortune; in remembrance of his unvarying interest in, and kindness to, poor actors during the whole course of his life; and in remembrance of the desire which such a man must in all reason be assumed to have had to benefit his own class, amongst others, when he devoted his munificent spirit to the foundation of Dulwich College. Now, ladies and gentlemen, to array against the very moderate suspicion that the founder of Dulwich College, in the great act of his life, did not at once give the go-by to all the sympathies and associations of his whole existence, we have what the authors of romance in the present day might call one diabolical anecdote and one remarkable fact. Now to dispose of this diabolical anecdote; in the first place it is sufficient to mention that as the tale goes it was how that once Alleyn played the Devil, and that thereupon he found upon the stage with him an original devil, which apparition so terrified him – as well it might – that he immediately retired from the theatre, and, as an expiation for ever having belonged to it and for the part he had played in it, founded this ‘God’s Gift’, or Dulwich College. Now, as far as I have been able to learn, there is not the smallest reason to believe that Edward Alleyn even so much as played the Devil at all, indeed I find there is an angel's suit among the list of his wardrobe; and as this story is handed down to us by an old gentleman who wrote charming stories about ghosts coming out of the wainscot and who went back again with a melodious twang, perhaps, under these circumstances, without disrespect to this particular devil, we might venture to dispose of him with a melodious twang of general consent. The remarkable fact is, however, of much greater importance. It is in the original gift that Edward Alleyn limited the benefits to inhabitants of certain particular parishes, including his own. These parishes, I should mention, expressly included the very districts about the theatres in which the actors of that time habitually resided. Not to embarrass you with the names of persons, and places, and dates, it may be enough to say that the name of Edward Alleyn appears among the ratepayers of the liberty of the Clink, in Southwark; and, in addition we find the names of some ten thoroughly well-known actors rated to the relief of the poor – prominent amongst them appearing the names of Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare? Surely we could hardly have a more striking corroboration of the intention that must have been in the mind of such a man than the express naming of those districts in which the players chiefly lived. Added to this, there is the fact that Edward Alleyn, himself an actor, was the first master of Dulwich College; and there is strong reason to believe – I say believe, because the spelling of the age renders the positive identification of names rather difficult – there is strong reason to believe, that two of the original officers of the College were also actors. Added to that, that at every period of his life, long after his retirement from the stage, and after his retirement to Dulwich, Edward Alleyn never forgot his brothers in the profession, nor ceased to be remembered by them as an actor; for we find on one occasion, a couple of years after he had built Dulwich College, he forgave a debt to a company of actors of £200 at a blow. One actor writes to him in this style: ‘I commend my love and humble duty to you, geving you thankes for your great bounty bestoed upon me in my sicknes, when I was in great want: god blese you for it.’ Lord Bacon writes of the College and of the founder – the actor – ‘I like well that Alleyn playeth the last act of his life so well.’ Alleyn himself writes to the former possessor of that ground on which the College now stands, and in which his ashes now repose, the following words in answer to such a taunt as a mean soul might be supposed to have thrown out upon his old profession: That I was a player I can not deny, and I am sure I will not. My meanes of living were honest, and with the poore abilytyes wherewith god blesst me I was able to doe something for my selfe, my relatives, and my frendes, many of them now lyving at this day will not refuse to owne what they owght me. Therefore am I not ashamed. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it would certainly be a grievous wrong to the writer of these noble words, and a great injury to the possessor of so manly a nature, to suppose him capable of having spurned the ladder by which he had risen, or to have set his face against the road by which he had come. I venture to say that in all biography there is not an instance of any man of honest self-reliance and self composure that was ever guilty of so base an action; accordingly Edward Alleyn never was. The industry of my friend, Mr. John Payne Collier, shows him to us in his habit as he lived; and it is easy, even in his secluded life at Dulwich, to trace many pleasant tenderings of his feet towards the old paths, and many delicate tenderings of his mind towards the old occupations. When he goes upon an occasional visit from Dulwich to London on horseback his delight is to dine at the theatrical ordinary, and surround himself with the old familiar theatrical faces; and at the Twelfth Night parties at Dulwich, the boys have to play before the good old player. Late in life his theatre is burnt down, and forthwith he applies himself with energy to its reconstruction. One of his old parts, copied by the theatre copyist, is found amongst his papers ages after he is dead. Everything testifies to the truth and fidelity of his simple heart. Gentle presences which I observe in the boxes, remind me that last night, when I was refreshing my memory with a reperusal of his good life, I found I had one uneasy doubt about him, and I mated that the follows of his college should be single men. This appeared to me uncomfortable. I soon found, however, his intention was to console them, and to recompense them for their miserable solitude, inasmuch as he had a wife of his own, to whom he was tenderly attached, and whom he was accustomed to address by the endearing epithet of ‘Mouse’, and when that grisly cat who is our common foe dispatched her he provided himself with another ‘Mouse’, with all convenient speed. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it will be most conducive to the order and effect of our proceedings that you should hear from the lips which have the best right to relate it to you, what encouraging communication has been had with the Charity Commissioners. Therefore, venturing to express my great admiration of the man who has an honest respect for his calling and a generous and disinterested sympathy with the professors of his art, and who moreover does the great public service – by no means an unimportant one in these times – of endeavouring to restore anything to its plain, original, truthful position, I beg to commend to your attention, Mr. Benjamin Webster. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Meeting of the Dramatic Profession on Dulwich College Description An account of the resource Speech at the Meeting of the Dramatic Profession on Dulwich College (13 March 1856). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856-03-13 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1856-03-13_Speech_Meeting-of-the-Dramatic-Profession-on-Dulwich-College Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Speech at the Meeting of the Dramatic Profession on Dulwich College (13 March 1856). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-13_Speech_Meeting-of-the-Dramatic-Profession-on-Dulwich-College">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-13_Speech_Meeting-of-the-Dramatic-Profession-on-Dulwich-College</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, My part in the proceedings of today I apprehend will not be so much to talk myself, as to be the cause of talk – and I trust of action also – in others. I shall merely endeavour to present to you as plain and just a summary as I can possibly make of the circumstances under which we are assembled together, being as careful as I possibly can not to trench upon the part of this day's proceedings which has been assigned to those distinguished gentlemen and ornaments of the theatrical profession by whom I have the honour to find myself surrounded. The ideas which most people about London associate with Dulwich College are, probably, of the very vaguest kind. They associate it chiefly, I dare say, with a charming gallery of interesting pictures – very freely and laudably open to the public – which pictures are seen with an unusual absence of glare and bustle; with pleasant gardens outside and a beautiful country, rich in all the attractions of Surrey and Kent. They have, I dare say, certain indistinct associations with some musty old men, in black gowns, all bearing the name of Alleyn, and an embowered college where, without blame to anyone, I dare say a snug thing or two has been transacted in the way of a good place, which we should all be very happy to get if we were only fortunate enough, and were ‘Alleyn’ enough to obtain it. They have probably no more distinct idea of the founder of Dulwich College than that he was rather an ancient personage, who lived many years ago, and who, somehow or other, bequeathed to posterity an excuse for passing an occasional pleasant holiday in a pretty country; and I make so bold to say for myself, if he had only done that for this working time, I think he would have done better service to it than is rendered by many majestic and noble personages of much loftier pretensions. But it becomes us, and the object for which we are here today, to look a little more closely into the history of Dulwich College, and in particular to ascertain whether he had any peculiar and close associations with the stage. He lived by the name of Edward Alleyn, and he lived too, in the days of a remarkable man who, though he died a commoner, who, though he was not honoured with a patent of nobility, nevertheless did the state some service – one William Shakespeare. His mother was the wife of an actor; he was himself bred to the stage; his brother engaged in theatrical pursuits; he married the daughter of the wife of an actor, who was herself an actress. He was himself a famous actor, and a great and prosperous theatrical manager. He was the manager of the Rose Theatre, and afterwards of the Fortune Theatre, and besides which he had a very large share – supposed to have been purchased from Shakespeare himself – in the Blackfriars Theatre; he was also one of the two appointed Masters of the King's Games; and besides inheriting considerable property, he acquired by the actor’s art and the manager's enterprise a great deal of money. Retiring from the stage before he was fifty years old, and being already Lord of the Manor of Dulwich, he founded there a college for the maintenance and support of one master, one warden, four fellows, six old men, and six old women, and twelve boys to be educated in good literature. To this college, after its completion, he himself retired, and there, wearing its habiliments and conducting himself in observance of its rules, he lived-and there he died, and there was buried in the year 1626, when he was sixty years of age. Now, when his ashes have lain under the chapel of that institution for more than two hundred years, a certain useful and very much needed public body –  called the Charity Commission – discovered that the endowment of this college was extremely rich, and capable of great extension-which extension they recommended to the Legislature. Hereupon up rises, true to his art and true to his trust, a great theatrical manager of our own times, who prays – always keeping within the proposed extensions – prays that one fourth of the benefits may be extended to poor players of both sexes, and also to the children of poor players. This appeal this gentleman makes in remembrance of the stage which Edward Alleyn embraced; in remembrance of the means by which he acquired fame and fortune; in remembrance of his unvarying interest in, and kindness to, poor actors during the whole course of his life; and in remembrance of the desire which such a man must in all reason be assumed to have had to benefit his own class, amongst others, when he devoted his munificent spirit to the foundation of Dulwich College.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, to array against the very moderate suspicion that the founder of Dulwich College, in the great act of his life, did not at once give the go-by to all the sympathies and associations of his whole existence, we have what the authors of romance in the present day might call one diabolical anecdote and one remarkable fact. Now to dispose of this diabolical anecdote; in the first place it is sufficient to mention that as the tale goes it was how that once Alleyn played the Devil, and that thereupon he found upon the stage with him an original devil, which apparition so terrified him – as well it might – that he immediately retired from the theatre, and, as an expiation for ever having belonged to it and for the part he had played in it, founded this ‘God’s Gift’, or Dulwich College. Now, as far as I have been able to learn, there is not the smallest reason to believe that Edward Alleyn even so much as played the Devil at all, indeed I find there is an angel's suit among the list of his wardrobe; and as this story is handed down to us by an old gentleman who wrote charming stories about ghosts coming out of the wainscot and who went back again with a melodious twang, perhaps, under these circumstances, without disrespect to this particular devil, we might venture to dispose of him with a melodious twang of general consent. The remarkable fact is, however, of much greater importance. It is in the original gift that Edward Alleyn limited the benefits to inhabitants of certain particular parishes, including his own. These parishes, I should mention, expressly included the very districts about the theatres in which the actors of that time habitually resided. Not to embarrass you with the names of persons, and places, and dates, it may be enough to say that the name of Edward Alleyn appears among the ratepayers of the liberty of the Clink, in Southwark; and, in addition we find the names of some ten thoroughly well-known actors rated to the relief of the poor –  prominent amongst them appearing the names of Edward Alleyn and William Shakespeare? Surely we could hardly have a more striking corroboration of the intention that must have been in the mind of such a man than the express naming of those districts in which the players chiefly lived. Added to this, there is the fact that Edward Alleyn, himself an actor, was the first master of Dulwich College; and there is strong reason to believe – I say believe, because the spelling of the age renders the positive identification of names rather difficult – there is strong reason to believe, that two of the original officers of the College were also actors. Added to that, that at every period of his life, long after his retirement from the stage, and after his retirement to Dulwich, Edward Alleyn never forgot his brothers in the profession, nor ceased to be remembered by them as an actor; for we find on one occasion, a couple of years after he had built Dulwich College, he forgave a debt to a company of actors of £200 at a blow. One actor writes to him in this style: ‘I commend my love and humble duty to you, geving you thankes for your great bounty bestoed upon me in my sicknes, when I was in great want: god blese you for it.’ Lord Bacon writes of the College and of the founder – the actor – ‘I like well that Alleyn playeth the last act of his life so well.’ Alleyn himself writes to the former possessor of that ground on which the College now stands, and in which his ashes now repose, the following words in answer to such a taunt as a mean soul might be supposed to have thrown out upon his old profession:   That I was a player I can not deny, and I am sure I will not. My meanes of living were honest, and with the poore abilytyes wherewith god blesst me I was able to doe something for my selfe, my relatives, and my frendes, many of them now lyving at this day will not refuse to owne what they owght me. Therefore am I not ashamed. Now, ladies and gentlemen, it would certainly be a grievous wrong to the writer of these noble words, and a great injury to the possessor of so manly a nature, to suppose him capable of having spurned the ladder by which he had risen, or to have set his face against the road by which he had come. I venture to say that in all biography there is not an instance of any man of honest self-reliance and self composure that was ever guilty of so base an action; accordingly Edward Alleyn never was. The industry of my friend, Mr. John Payne Collier,  shows him to us in his habit as he lived; and it is easy, even in his secluded life at Dulwich, to trace many pleasant tenderings of his feet towards the old paths, and many delicate tenderings of his mind towards the old occupations. When he goes upon an occasional visit from Dulwich to London on horseback his delight is to dine at the theatrical ordinary, and surround himself with the old familiar theatrical faces; and at the Twelfth Night parties at Dulwich, the boys have to play before the good old player. Late in life his theatre is burnt down, and forthwith he applies himself with energy to its reconstruction. One of his old parts, copied by the theatre copyist, is found amongst his papers ages after he is dead. Everything testifies to the truth and fidelity of his simple heart. Gentle presences which I observe in the boxes, remind me that last night, when I was refreshing my memory with a reperusal of his good life, I found I had one uneasy doubt about him, and I mated that the follows of his college should be single men. This appeared to me uncomfortable. I soon found, however, his intention was to console them, and to recompense them for their miserable solitude, inasmuch as he had a wife of his own, to whom he was tenderly attached, and whom he was accustomed to address by the endearing epithet of ‘Mouse’, and when that grisly cat who is our common foe dispatched her he provided himself with another ‘Mouse’, with all convenient speed.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, it will be most conducive to the order and effect of our proceedings that you should hear from the lips which have the best right to relate it to you, what encouraging communication has been had with the Charity Commissioners. Therefore, venturing to express my great admiration of the man who has an honest respect for his calling and a generous and disinterested sympathy with the professors of his art, and who moreover does the great public service – by no means an unimportant one in these times – of endeavouring to restore anything to its plain, original, truthful position, I beg to commend to your attention, Mr. Benjamin Webster. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. He would not follow, he said, the horrible example of his friend Mr. Taylor, who began by addressing the ladies, informing them that none of the other speakers had paid any regard to them, and having thus taken advantage of their unsuspecting nature to gain their willing ear, forthwith abandoned them, addressed himself to the gentlemen, and never after alluded to the ladies throughout his speech. The ladies and gentlemen present, or a large portion of them, would know that in order to make a performance go smoothly it was necessary to arrange a number of little points beforehand. Now, a little point had been arranged between Lord Tenterden and himself, which he would give the public the benefit of. Lord Tenterden had arranged for himself a speech which he had enjoined him (Mr. Dickens) not to entrench upon. It was enjoined to leave the chairman a little fat, and he was cautioned to keep to his toast. He would do so. He was sure they were under deep obligations to the professional ladies and gentlemen who had contributed so much towards their enjoyment that evening, and he felt it a great honour to be allowed to propose their healths. Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18560317 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Well remember that when the opera of Gustavus was first produced at Covent Garden, the audience found something dangerously comic in that person referring to that which was the most momentous portion of his existence – whether he should or should not go to the ball where he received his death-wound – to the walking gentleman, Mr. Baker, who had never before opened his lips, or given any sign of his existence: I forget what Mr. Baker's opinion was, but the audience had no faith in him. And when Mr. Baker, who was dressed in a Court dress as the Court physician, replied to his royal master, the audience certainly were not so serious as they might have been. Now the Trustees are the Court Physicians and walking gentlemen in this place, inasmuch as we have nothing to do but to accept your thanks every year, and to acknowledge the same. My interest in this society dates from the establishment of the Fund itself. I found it, at the beginning, a plain unpretending reality, designed by actors for the benefit of actors of all degrees, gratuitously administered by actors for actors, and supported by their small earnings from year to year and from month to month. From that time to the present I find it the same, exactly what it claims and professes to be, with no kind of false pretence about it; and I do thoroughly believe it is one of the most deserving institutions in this country. I had, a few days ago, a communication from my friend and fellow Trustee, Mr. Macready, on the subject of this Fund. It arose out of that great change which has made Covent Garden a heap of ruins. That event occasioned us to remember afresh that the English drama has no home or hope of a home in that waste spot. That occasioned us to look afresh into the future, – whether there might be any claimants left on the Covent Garden Theatrical Fund; for, while it will be impossible that any new members can be made, I do indulge a hope, amounting almost to a conviction, that the accumulated wealth of that institution must ultimately flow into the coffers of this society. If it were possible, in the nature of things, that those distinguished professors of the dramatic art who are now most justly enjoying their annuities out of that fund as the result of their contributions to it, – even if it were possible to double, treble, and quadruple what they are now entitled to, we should all be delighted; but we cannot imagine, when all the purposes for which that fund was established are impossible of realization, what can become of its great capital, unless it finds its way to an institution founded for. and made accessible to. the whole dramatic profession throughout this kingdom. Having now thanked you on behalf of the Trustees for your favourable reception of their names, I will no longer stand in the way of the next toast, but thank you most gratefully for the hand-some, kind, and ready manner in which you were pleased to receive my name. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1856 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (17 March 1856). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856-03-17 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1856-03-17_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Royal General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (17 March 1856). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-17_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1856-03-17_Speech_Royal-General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Well remember that when the opera of Gustavus was first produced at Covent Garden, the audience found something dangerously comic in that person referring to that which was the most momentous portion of his existence – whether he should or should not go to the ball where he received his death-wound – to the walking gentleman, Mr. Baker, who had never before opened his lips, or given any sign of his existence: I forget what Mr. Baker's opinion was, but the audience had no faith in him. And when Mr. Baker, who was dressed in a Court dress as the Court physician, replied to his royal master, the audience certainly were not so serious as they might have been. Now the Trustees are the Court Physicians and walking gentlemen in this place, inasmuch as we have nothing to do but to accept your thanks every year, and to acknowledge the same. My interest in this society dates from the establishment of the Fund itself. I found it, at the beginning, a plain unpretending reality, designed by actors for the benefit of actors of all degrees, gratuitously administered by actors for actors, and supported by their small earnings from year to year and from month to month. From that time to the present I find it the same, exactly what it claims and professes to be, with no kind of false pretence about it; and I do thoroughly believe it is one of the most deserving institutions in this country. I had, a few days ago, a communication from my friend and fellow Trustee, Mr. Macready, on the subject of this Fund. It arose out of that great change which has made Covent Garden a heap of ruins. That event occasioned us to remember afresh that the English drama has no home or hope of a home in that waste spot. That occasioned us to look afresh into the future, – whether there might be any claimants left on the Covent Garden Theatrical Fund; for, while it will be impossible that any new members can be made, I do indulge a hope, amounting almost to a conviction, that the accumulated wealth of that institution must ultimately flow into the coffers of this society. If it were possible, in the nature of things, that those distinguished professors of the dramatic art who are now most justly enjoying their annuities out of that fund as the result of their contributions to it, – even if it were possible to double, treble, and quadruple what they are now entitled to, we should all be delighted; but we cannot imagine, when all the purposes for which that fund was established are impossible of realization, what can become of its great capital, unless it finds its way to an institution founded for. and made accessible to. the whole dramatic profession throughout this kingdom.  Having now thanked you on behalf of the Trustees for your favourable reception of their names, I will no longer stand in the way of the next toast, but thank you most gratefully for the hand-some, kind, and ready manner in which you were pleased to receive my name.