35 10 361 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._III_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Lieutenant-Colonel_Robin_Redforth/1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth.pdf e47f17c63c89a0a32682457221b8667f 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 Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Our Young Folks 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. 18680301 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. PART III. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF LIEUT.-COL. ROBIN REDFORTH* The subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns loaded to the muzzle, ere yet he had had a party in honor of his tenth birthday. It seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a Latin-Grammar-Master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honor to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of Spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valor. It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his story. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favored them with the following melody: — O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. The soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of Boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described. It was under these circumstances that the lookout at the mast-head gave the word, "Whales!" All was now activity. "Where away?" cried Captain Boldheart, starting up. "On the larboard bow, sir," replied the fellow at the mast-head, touching his hat. For such was the height of discipline on board the Beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head. "This adventure belongs to me," said Boldheart. "Boy, my harpoon. Let no man follow"; and leaping alone into his boat, the Captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster. All was now excitement. "He nears him!" said an elderly seaman, following the Captain through his spy-glass. "He strikes him!" said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass. "He tows him towards us!" said another seaman, a man in the full vigor of life, but also with a spy-glass. In fact, the Captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. We will not dwell on the deafening cries of "Boldheart! Boldheart!" with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. They afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it. Ordering the sails to be braced up, the Captain now stood W.N.W. The Beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. Nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four Spanish galleons, and a Snow from South America, all richly laden. Inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. Captain Boldheart called all hands aft, and said, "My lads, I hear there are discontented ones among ye. Let any such stand forth." After some murmuring, in which the expressions, "Ay, ay, sir," "Union Jack," "Avast," "Starboard," "Port," "Bowsprit," and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued were audible, Bill Boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. His form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the Captain’s eye. "What are your wrongs?" said the Captain. "Why, d’ye see, Captain Boldheart," returned the towering mariner, "I’ve sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know’d the milk served out for the ship’s company’s teas to be so sour as ‘t is aboard this craft." At this moment the thrilling cry, "Man overboard!" announced to the astonished crew that Boozey, in stepping back as the Captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide. All was now stupefaction. But with Captain Boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. Maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the Captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the Beauty. And from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, Captain Boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as William Boozey. Boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbor under the guns of a fort. "She shall be ours at sunrise," said he. "Serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action." All was now preparation. When morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbor and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colors. Boldheart then perceived her to be the Latin-Grammar Master’s bark. Such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life. Boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up, if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the Latin-Grammar-Master should be taken alive. He then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the Beauty. She then veered round and poured in another. The Scorpion (so was the bark of the Latin-Grammar-Master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the Beauty did tremendous execution. The Latin-Grammar-Master was seen upon the poop in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short gray trousers, and his long snuff-colored surtout reaching to his heels, — the self-same coat in which he had spited Boldheart, — contrasted most unfavorably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. At this moment Boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board. A desperate conflict ensued in the hammock-nettings,—or somewhere in about that direction,—until the Latin-Grammar-Master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing Boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to Boldheart, and asked for quarter. Scarce had he been put into the captain’s boat, ere the Scorpion went down with all on board. On Captain Boldheart’s now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. He found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the Cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the Latin-Grammar-Master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife. Captain Boldheart then turned to the Latin-Grammar-Master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved? They answered with one voice, "Death." "It may be so," said the Captain, "but it shall never be said that Boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. Prepare the cutter." The cutter was immediately prepared. "Without taking your life," said the Captain, "I must yet for ever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. I shall turn you adrift in this boat. You will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my Latin grammar. Go! And spite the Natives, if you can find any." Deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship’s telescopes. A stiff breeze now beginning to blow, Captain Boldheart gave orders to keep her S.S.W., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two W. by W., or even by W.S., if she complained much. He then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. In addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it. In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colors. It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months. Waterspouts and tornadoes followed. The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather. The Beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the Captain’s table. We now approach a change of affairs. One day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the mast-head—too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away—called out, "Savages!" All was now expectation. Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green colour (the Savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain: — Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the Evening Hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of "For what we are going to receive," &c. The chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colors, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting Parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was the Beauty, Captain Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the Captain had lifted him up, and told him he wouldn’t hurt him. All the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. Thus the fame of the great Boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature. Turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. After dinner the Chief told Captain Boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. Apprehensive of treachery, Boldheart ordered his boat’s crew to attend him completely armed. And well were it for other commanders if their precautions, but let us not anticipate. When the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. Ordering his boat’s crew (with the intrepid though illiterate William at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, Boldheart bravely went on, arm in arm with the Chief. But how to depict the Captain’s surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of "For what we are going to receive," &c., which has been given above, and dancing hand in hand round the Latin-Grammar- Master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked! Boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. In the mean time the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. On the generous Boldheart’s proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. Namely, 1. That he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more. 2. That, if taken back to England, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, Boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. The prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career. The Captain then ordered his boat’s crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. "And expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels," murmured William Boozey, "for I’m a-looking at ye." With those words, the derisive though deadly William took a good aim. "Fire!" The ringing voice of Boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. Volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin-Grammar-Master had a spare nightcap lent him, and a long-tail coat which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right. We now find Captain Boldheart with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. At one of these, not a cannibal island but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the King’s daughter. Here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. This, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men. The ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, Boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the Beauty’s head towards England. These orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile William. We next find Captain Boldheart about three leagues off Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back garden at home. Inferring, from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the Captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and, if so, whether his father’s intentions were strictly honorable. The boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was The Family, of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the Captain’s father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. It was further reported to Boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. Boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the Beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day. It was in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters came to. The meeting between the Captain and his parents was attended with tears. His uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn’t going to stand that. His cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendor of his uniform. He kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out everything worthy of notice. He also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm. The entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. Only one disagreeable incident occurred. Captain Boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin Tom in irons, for being disrespectful. On the boy’s promising amendment, however, he was humanely released, after a few hours’ close confinement. Boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. His mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at Margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of September), but that she feared the young lady’s friends were still opposed to the union. Boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town. Taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board The Family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, Boldheart soon anchored in Margate Roads. Here he went ashore well armed, and attended by his boat’s crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious William), and demanded to see the Mayor, who came out of his office. "Dost know the name of yon ship, Mayor?" asked Boldheart, fiercely. "No," said the Mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor. "She is named the Beauty," said the Captain. "Hah!" exclaimed the Mayor, with a start. "And you, then, are Captain Boldheart?" "The same." A pause ensued. The Mayor trembled. "Now, Mayor," said the Captain, "choose! Help me to my Bride, or be bombarded." The Mayor begged for two hours’ grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. Boldheart accorded him but one, and during that one placed William Boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false. At the end of the hour, the Mayor re-appeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by Boozey more alive than dead. "Captain," said the Mayor, "I have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. Even now she waits her turn for a machine. The tide is low, though rising. I, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. When she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. Do you the rest." "Mayor," returned Captain Boldheart, "thou hast saved thy town." The Captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and, steering her himself, ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. All happened as had been arranged. His lovely bride came forth, the Mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat’s crew, her adoring Boldheart held her in his strong arms. There her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy. Before the Beauty could get under way, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbor, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave Boldheart that he had nothing to fear. He therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing-boat named the Skylark. Another great entertainment was then given on board the Beauty, in the midst of which the Mayor was called out by a messenger. He returned with the news that Government had sent down to know whether Captain Boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a Pirate, would consent to be made a Lieutenant-Colonel. For himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his Bride wished it and he consented. Only one thing further happened before the good ship Family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. It is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that Captain Boldheart’s unmannerly Cousin Tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope’s end "for cheekiness and making game," when Captain Boldheart’s Lady begged for him and he was spared. The Beauty then refitted, and the Captain and his Bride departed for the Indian Ocean to enjoy themselves forevermore. *Aged Nine. 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 No. III, Holiday Romance, 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth' Description An account of the resource Published in Our Young Folks, vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived HathiTrust, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-03 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Illustrated by John Gilbert Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Google-digitised. Digitised materials on Google Books published before 1922 are in the public domain. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth 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. 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth' (March 1868). Holiday Romance. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_No3_Holiday_Romance_Lieut_Col_Robin_Redforth</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. PART III. ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF LIEUT.-COL. ROBIN REDFORTH* The subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns loaded to the muzzle, ere yet he had had a party in honor of his tenth birthday. It seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a Latin-Grammar-Master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honor to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of Spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valor. It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his story. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favored them with the following melody: — O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. The soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of Boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described. It was under these circumstances that the lookout at the mast-head gave the word, "Whales!" All was now activity. "Where away?" cried Captain Boldheart, starting up. "On the larboard bow, sir," replied the fellow at the mast-head, touching his hat. For such was the height of discipline on board the Beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head. "This adventure belongs to me," said Boldheart. "Boy, my harpoon. Let no man follow"; and leaping alone into his boat, the Captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster. All was now excitement. "He nears him!" said an elderly seaman, following the Captain through his spy-glass. "He strikes him!" said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass. "He tows him towards us!" said another seaman, a man in the full vigor of life, but also with a spy-glass. In fact, the Captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. We will not dwell on the deafening cries of "Boldheart! Boldheart!" with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. They afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it. Ordering the sails to be braced up, the Captain now stood W.N.W. The Beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. Nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four Spanish galleons, and a Snow from South America, all richly laden. Inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. Captain Boldheart called all hands aft, and said, "My lads, I hear there are discontented ones among ye. Let any such stand forth." After some murmuring, in which the expressions, "Ay, ay, sir," "Union Jack," "Avast," "Starboard," "Port," "Bowsprit," and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued were audible, Bill Boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. His form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the Captain’s eye. "What are your wrongs?" said the Captain. "Why, d’ye see, Captain Boldheart," returned the towering mariner, "I’ve sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know’d the milk served out for the ship’s company’s teas to be so sour as ‘t is aboard this craft." At this moment the thrilling cry, "Man overboard!" announced to the astonished crew that Boozey, in stepping back as the Captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide. All was now stupefaction. But with Captain Boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. Maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the Captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the Beauty. And from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, Captain Boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as William Boozey. Boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbor under the guns of a fort. "She shall be ours at sunrise," said he. "Serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action." All was now preparation. When morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbor and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colors. Boldheart then perceived her to be the Latin-Grammar Master’s bark. Such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life. Boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up, if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the Latin-Grammar-Master should be taken alive. He then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the Beauty. She then veered round and poured in another. The Scorpion (so was the bark of the Latin-Grammar-Master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the Beauty did tremendous execution. The Latin-Grammar-Master was seen upon the poop in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short gray trousers, and his long snuff-colored surtout reaching to his heels, — the self-same coat in which he had spited Boldheart, — contrasted most unfavorably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. At this moment Boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board. A desperate conflict ensued in the hammock-nettings,—or somewhere in about that direction,—until the Latin-Grammar-Master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing Boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to Boldheart, and asked for quarter. Scarce had he been put into the captain’s boat, ere the Scorpion went down with all on board. On Captain Boldheart’s now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. He found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the Cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the Latin-Grammar-Master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife. Captain Boldheart then turned to the Latin-Grammar-Master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved? They answered with one voice, "Death." "It may be so," said the Captain, "but it shall never be said that Boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. Prepare the cutter." The cutter was immediately prepared. "Without taking your life," said the Captain, "I must yet for ever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. I shall turn you adrift in this boat. You will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my Latin grammar. Go! And spite the Natives, if you can find any." Deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship’s telescopes. A stiff breeze now beginning to blow, Captain Boldheart gave orders to keep her S.S.W., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two W. by W., or even by W.S., if she complained much. He then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. In addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it. In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colors. It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months. Waterspouts and tornadoes followed. The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather. The Beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the Captain’s table. We now approach a change of affairs. One day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the mast-head—too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away—called out, "Savages!" All was now expectation. Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green colour (the Savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain: — Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the Evening Hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of "For what we are going to receive," &c. The chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colors, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting Parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was the Beauty, Captain Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the Captain had lifted him up, and told him he wouldn’t hurt him. All the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. Thus the fame of the great Boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature. Turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. After dinner the Chief told Captain Boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. Apprehensive of treachery, Boldheart ordered his boat’s crew to attend him completely armed. And well were it for other commanders if their precautions, but let us not anticipate. When the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. Ordering his boat’s crew (with the intrepid though illiterate William at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, Boldheart bravely went on, arm in arm with the Chief. But how to depict the Captain’s surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of "For what we are going to receive," &c., which has been given above, and dancing hand in hand round the Latin-Grammar- Master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked! Boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. In the mean time the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. On the generous Boldheart’s proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. Namely, 1. That he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more. 2. That, if taken back to England, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it. Drawing the sword from its sheath, Boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. The prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career. The Captain then ordered his boat’s crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. "And expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels," murmured William Boozey, "for I’m a-looking at ye." With those words, the derisive though deadly William took a good aim. "Fire!" The ringing voice of Boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. Volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin-Grammar-Master had a spare nightcap lent him, and a long-tail coat which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right. We now find Captain Boldheart with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. At one of these, not a cannibal island but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the King’s daughter. Here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. This, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men. The ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, Boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the Beauty’s head towards England. These orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile William. We next find Captain Boldheart about three leagues off Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back garden at home. Inferring, from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the Captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and, if so, whether his father’s intentions were strictly honorable. The boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was The Family, of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the Captain’s father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. It was further reported to Boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. Boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the Beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day. It was in the course of the night that the captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters came to. The meeting between the Captain and his parents was attended with tears. His uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn’t going to stand that. His cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendor of his uniform. He kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out everything worthy of notice. He also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm. The entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. Only one disagreeable incident occurred. Captain Boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin Tom in irons, for being disrespectful. On the boy’s promising amendment, however, he was humanely released, after a few hours’ close confinement. Boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. His mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at Margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of September), but that she feared the young lady’s friends were still opposed to the union. Boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town. Taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board The Family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, Boldheart soon anchored in Margate Roads. Here he went ashore well armed, and attended by his boat’s crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious William), and demanded to see the Mayor, who came out of his office. "Dost know the name of yon ship, Mayor?" asked Boldheart, fiercely. "No," said the Mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor. "She is named the Beauty," said the Captain. "Hah!" exclaimed the Mayor, with a start. "And you, then, are Captain Boldheart?" "The same." A pause ensued. The Mayor trembled. "Now, Mayor," said the Captain, "choose! Help me to my Bride, or be bombarded." The Mayor begged for two hours’ grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. Boldheart accorded him but one, and during that one placed William Boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false. At the end of the hour, the Mayor re-appeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by Boozey more alive than dead. "Captain," said the Mayor, "I have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. Even now she waits her turn for a machine. The tide is low, though rising. I, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. When she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. Do you the rest." "Mayor," returned Captain Boldheart, "thou hast saved thy town." The Captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and, steering her himself, ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. All happened as had been arranged. His lovely bride came forth, the Mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat’s crew, her adoring Boldheart held her in his strong arms. There her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy. Before the Beauty could get under way, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbor, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave Boldheart that he had nothing to fear. He therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing-boat named the Skylark. Another great entertainment was then given on board the Beauty, in the midst of which the Mayor was called out by a messenger. He returned with the news that Government had sent down to know whether Captain Boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a Pirate, would consent to be made a Lieutenant-Colonel. For himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his Bride wished it and he consented. Only one thing further happened before the good ship Family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. It is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that Captain Boldheart’s unmannerly Cousin Tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope’s end "for cheekiness and making game," when Captain Boldheart’s Lady begged for him and he was spared. The Beauty then refitted, and the Captain and his Bride departed for the Indian Ocean to enjoy themselves forevermore. *Aged Nine. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Captain_Boldheart_s_Song/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song.pdf ac6e0df7bb1a11185322cb260fb65365 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 Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Our Young Folks 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. 18680301 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. O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. 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 'Captain Boldheart's Song' Description An account of the resource Published in 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth,' No. III. Holiday Romance. Our Young Folks, vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom, p. 194. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived HathiTrust, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain, Google-digitized Type The nature or genre of the resource Verse Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song 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. 'Captain Boldheart's Song' (March 1868). Holiday Romance. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-03-Captain_Boldhearts_Song</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. O landsmen are folly! O Pirates are jolly! O Diddleum Dolly, Di! (Chorus.) Heave yo. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/3/Song_of_the_Green_Savages/1868-03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages.pdf 17ee541855a6c9d98d8613a02b3074d2 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 Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Our Young Folks 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. 18680301 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. Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! 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 'Song of the Green Savages' Description An account of the resource Published in 'Romance. From the Pen of Lieutenant-Colonel Robin Redforth,' No. III. Holiday Romance. Our Young Folks, vol.4, no. 1 (March 1868), pp. 193-200. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom, p. 197. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived HathiTrust, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-03 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain, Google-digitised Type The nature or genre of the resource Verse Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. <div class="element-text five columns omega"> Dickens, Charles. 'Song of the Green Savages' (March 1868). Holiday Romance. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868_03_Song_of_the_Green_Savages</a>. </div> Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nycey! Choo a choo a choo tooth. Muntch, muntch. Nyce! 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. ‘The audience was large and gave Mr. Dickens their undivided attention. – His apology for the “inconvenience of which he asserted himself to have been the innocent cause” was very timely, and gave him the entire support of his audience.’ Location The location New Haven Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) New Haven Evening Register 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. 18680324 Venue Where the speech was given Music 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 At a Reading in New Haven Description An account of the resource Speech given before a reading of 'Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions' and 'Mr. Bob Sawyer’s Party' (24 March 1868). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived New Haven Evening Register (25 March 1868). Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-03-24 Type The nature or genre of the resource Speech Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven 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. 'Reading in New Haven' (24 March 1868). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven">1868-03-24_Speech_Reading_in_New_Haven</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 Boston Venue Where the speech was given Tremont Temple 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. 18680408 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, Before allowing Doctor Marigold to tell his story in his own peculiar way, I kiss the kind fair hands unknown which have so beautifully decorated my table this evening. Ladies and Gentlemen, My gracious and generous welcome in America, which can never be obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My departure begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never until this moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief life of ours it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned towards my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments from this time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade from my view – for evermore. But it is my consolation that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the ready response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have made this place delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon it that that spirit will abide with me as long as I have sense and sentiment. I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships that have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved spot to me, for such private references have no business in this public place. I say it purely in remembrance of, and in homage to, the great public heart before me. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and most affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell. 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 At a Reading in Boston Description An account of the resource Speeches before and after a Reading in Boston (8 April 1868). 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 1868-04-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-04-08_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Boston 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. 'Speeches before and after a Reading in Boston' (8 April 1868). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-08_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Boston">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-08_Speech_At-a-Reading-in-Boston</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, Before allowing Doctor Marigold to tell his story in his own peculiar way, I kiss the kind fair hands unknown which have so beautifully decorated my table this evening. Ladies and Gentlemen, My gracious and generous welcome in America, which can never be obliterated from my remembrance, began here. My departure begins here, too; for I assure you that I have never until this moment really felt that I am going away. In this brief life of ours it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned towards my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments from this time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade from my view – for evermore. But it is my consolation that the spirit of the bright faces, the quick perception, the ready response, the generous and the cheering sounds that have made this place delightful to me, will remain; and you may rely upon it that that spirit will abide with me as long as I have sense and sentiment. I do not say this with any limited reference to private friendships that have for years upon years made Boston a memorable and beloved spot to me, for such private references have no business in this public place. I say it purely in remembrance of, and in homage to, the great public heart before me. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg most earnestly, most gratefully, and most affectionately, to bid you, each and all, farewell. 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 New York Venue Where the speech was given Delmonico's 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. 18680418 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. Gentlemen, I cannot do better than take my cue to from your distinguished President, and to refer in my first remarks to his remarks in connexion with the old natural association between you and me. When I received an invitation from a private association of working members of the Press of New York to dine with them today, I accepted that compliment in grateful remembrance of a calling that was once my own, and in loyal sympathy towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quitted. To the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons will hereafter testify of their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder by which he rose. If it were otherwise I should have but a very poor opinion of their father – which, perhaps, upon the whole, I have not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances, this company would have been exceptionally interesting and gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed that, like the fairies’ pavilion in the Arabian Nights, it would be but a mere handful, and I find it to turn out, like the same elastic pavilion, capable of comprehending a multitude, so much the more proud am I of the honour of being your guest; for you will readily believe that the more widely representative of the Press in America my entertainers are, the more I must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments towards me of that vast institution. Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, and I have for upwards of four hard winter months so contended against what I have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was ‘a true American catarrh’ – a possession which I have throughout highly appreciated, though I might have preferred to be naturalized by any other outward and visible means. I say, gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard, that I might have been contented with troubling you no further from my present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing changes that I have seen around me on every side – changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I have nothing to learn, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct from when I was here first. And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed here last November, observed a strict silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your permission, beg leave to take you now into my confidence. Even the Press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have myself, on one or two occasions, in some rare instances, known its information to be not perfectly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past been collecting materials and hammering away at a new book on America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that I positively declared that no consideration on earth should induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own person to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at tonight. Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour. Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. I was asked in this very city, about last Christmas time, whether an American was not at some disadvantage in England as a foreigner. The notion of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd to me, that my gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was restored, I said that for years and years past I hoped I had had as many American friends and had received as many American visitors as almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be an American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition anywhere. Hereupon, out of half a dozen people, suddenly spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art, who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a certain historical English castle, famous for its pictures, was refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the establishment on that day, but who, on merely representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his immediate disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London, and having a great desire to see the famous reading-room of the British Museum, was assured by the English family with whom she stayed that it was unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week, and she had only three days there. Upon that lady’s going to the Museum, as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an American lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young and exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution is of an obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him, not very impressible. Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to do, to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself, has no previous conceptions to contend against. Points of difference there have been, points of difference there are, points of difference there probably always will be between the two great peoples. But broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that those two peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great Anglo-Saxon race, to which our President has referred, and all its great achievements before the world. And if I know anything of my countrymen – and they give me credit for knowing something – if I know anything of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended that lovers should begin, with ‘a little aversion’, but with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, or the little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, take my word for it, that the first enduring, great popular consideration in England is a generous construction of justice. Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides, there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for this globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it should present the spectacle of these two great nations each of which has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one against the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your President enough, or you enough, for your kind reception of my health and of my poor remarks; but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable. 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 New York Press Banquet Description An account of the resource Speech at the New York Press Banquet, New York (18 April 1868). 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 1868-04-18 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-04-18_Speech_New-York-Press-Banquet 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 New York Press Banquet, New York' (18 April 1868). Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-18_Speech_New-York-Press-Banquet">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-18_Speech_New-York-Press-Banquet</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, I cannot do better than take my cue to from your distinguished President, and to refer in my first remarks to his remarks in connexion with the old natural association between you and me. When I received an invitation from a private association of working members of the Press of New York to dine with them today, I accepted that compliment in grateful remembrance of a calling that was once my own, and in loyal sympathy towards a brotherhood which, in the spirit, I have never quitted. To the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, I constantly refer my first successes; and my sons will hereafter testify of their father that he was always steadily proud of that ladder by which he rose. If it were otherwise I should have but a very poor opinion of their father – which, perhaps, upon the whole, I have not. Hence, gentlemen, under any circumstances, this company would have been exceptionally interesting and gratifying to me. But whereas I supposed that, like the fairies’ pavilion in the Arabian Nights, it would be but a mere handful, and I find it to turn out, like the same elastic pavilion, capable of comprehending a multitude, so much the more proud am I of the honour of being your guest; for you will readily believe that the more widely representative of the Press in America my entertainers are, the more I must feel the good-will and the kindly sentiments towards me of that vast institution. Gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard in the land, and I have for upwards of four hard winter months so contended against what I have been sometimes quite admiringly assured was ‘a true American catarrh’ – a possession which I have throughout highly appreciated, though I might have preferred to be naturalized by any other outward and visible means. I say, gentlemen, so much of my voice has lately been heard, that I might have been contented with troubling you no further from my present standing-point, were it not a duty with which I henceforth charge myself, not only here but on every suitable occasion, whatsoever and wheresoever, to express my high and grateful sense of my second reception in America, and to bear my honest testimony to the national generosity and magnanimity. Also, to declare how astounded I have been by the amazing changes that I have seen around me on every side – changes moral, changes physical, changes in the amount of land subdued and peopled, changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the Press, without whose advancement no advancement can be made anywhere. Nor am I, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five-and-twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that I have nothing to learn, and that I had nothing to learn and no extreme impressions to correct from when I was here first. And, gentlemen, this brings me to a point on which I have, ever since I landed here last November, observed a strict silence, though tempted sometimes to break it, but in reference to which I will, with your permission, beg leave to take you now into my confidence. Even the Press, being human, may be sometimes mistaken or misinformed, and I rather think that I have myself, on one or two occasions, in some rare instances, known its information to be not perfectly accurate with reference to myself. Indeed, I have now and again been more surprised by printed news that I have read of myself, than by any printed news that I have ever read in my present state of existence. Thus, the vigour and perseverance with which I have for some months past been collecting materials and hammering away at a new book on America have much astonished me, seeing that all that time it has been perfectly well known to my publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, that I positively declared that no consideration on earth should induce me to write one. But what I have intended, what I have resolved upon (and this is the confidence I seek to place in you) is, on my return to England, in my own person to bear, for the behoof of my countrymen, such testimony to the gigantic changes in this country as I have hinted at tonight. Also, to record that wherever I have been, in the smallest places equally with the largest, I have been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon me by the nature of my avocation here, and the state of my health. This testimony, so long as I live, and so long as my descendants have any legal right in my books, I shall cause to be republished, as an appendix to every copy of those two books of mine in which I have referred to America. And this I will do and cause to be done, not in mere love and thankfulness, but because I regard it as an act of plain justice and honour. Gentlemen, the transition from my own feelings towards and interest in America to those of the mass of my countrymen seems to be a natural one; but, whether or no, I make it with an express object. I was asked in this very city, about last Christmas time, whether an American was not at some disadvantage in England as a foreigner. The notion of an American being regarded in England as a foreigner at all, of his ever being thought of or spoken of in that character, was so uncommonly incongruous and absurd to me, that my gravity was, for the moment, quite overpowered. As soon as it was restored, I said that for years and years past I hoped I had had as many American friends and had received as many American visitors as almost any Englishman living, and that my unvarying experience, fortified by theirs, was that it was enough in England to be an American to be received with the readiest respect and recognition anywhere. Hereupon, out of half a dozen people, suddenly spoke out two, one an American gentleman, with a cultivated taste for art, who, finding himself on a certain Sunday outside the walls of a certain historical English castle, famous for its pictures, was refused admission there, according to the strict rules of the establishment on that day, but who, on merely representing that he was an American gentleman, on his travels, had, not to say the picture gallery, but the whole castle, placed at his immediate disposal. The other was a lady, who, being in London, and having a great desire to see the famous reading-room of the British Museum, was assured by the English family with whom she stayed that it was unfortunately impossible, because the place was closed for a week, and she had only three days there. Upon that lady’s going to the Museum, as she assured me, alone to the gate, self-introduced as an American lady, the gate flew open, as it were magically. I am unwillingly bound to add that she certainly was young and exceedingly pretty. Still, the porter of that institution is of an obese habit, and, according to the best of my observation of him, not very impressible. Now, gentlemen, I refer to these trifles as a collateral assurance to you that the Englishman who shall humbly strive, as I hope to do, to be in England as faithful to America as to England herself, has no previous conceptions to contend against. Points of difference there have been, points of difference there are, points of difference there probably always will be between the two great peoples. But broadcast in England is sown the sentiment that those two peoples are essentially one, and that it rests with them jointly to uphold the great Anglo-Saxon race, to which our President has referred, and all its great achievements before the world. And if I know anything of my countrymen – and they give me credit for knowing something – if I know anything of my countrymen, gentlemen, the English heart is stirred by the fluttering of those Stars and Stripes, as it is stirred by no other flag that flies except its own. If I know my countrymen, in any and every relation towards America, they begin, not as Sir Anthony Absolute recommended that lovers should begin, with ‘a little aversion’, but with a great liking and a profound respect; and whatever the little sensitiveness of the moment, or the little official passion, or the little official policy now, or then, or here, or there, may be, take my word for it, that the first enduring, great popular consideration in England is a generous construction of justice. Finally, gentlemen, and I say this subject to your correction, I do believe that from the great majority of honest minds on both sides, there cannot be absent the conviction that it would be better for this globe to be riven by an earthquake, fired by a comet, overrun by an iceberg, and abandoned to the Arctic fox and bear, than that it should present the spectacle of these two great nations each of which has, in its own way and hour, striven so hard and so successfully for freedom, ever again being arrayed the one against the other. Gentlemen, I cannot thank your President enough, or you enough, for your kind reception of my health and of my poor remarks; but, believe me, I do thank you with the utmost fervour of which my soul is capable. 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 New York Venue Where the speech was given Steinway Hall 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. 18680420 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, The shadow of one word has impended over me all this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is not measurable by their length, and two much shorter words express the round of our human existence. When I was reading David Copperfield here last Thursday night, I felt there was more than usual significance for me in Mr. Peggotty’s declaration, ‘My future life lies over the sea.’ And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly that I was shortly to establish such an alibi as would have satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been set up between us in this place – relations sustained, on my side at least, by the most earnest devotion of myself to my task: sustained by yourself, on your side, by the readiest sympathy and kindest acknowledgement – must now be broken, for ever. But I entreat you to believe that in passing from my sight, you will not pass from my memory. I shall often, often recall you as I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell – and I pray God bless you, and God bless the land in which I leave you. 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 Farewell Reading, New York Description An account of the resource Speech at the Farewell Reading, New York (20 April 1868). 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 1868-04-20 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-04-20_Speech_Farewell-Reading-New-York 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 Farewell Reading, New York' (20 April 1868). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-20_Speech_Farewell-Reading-New-York">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1868-04-20_Speech_Farewell-Reading-New-York</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and gentlemen, The shadow of one word has impended over me all this evening, and the time has come at length when the shadow must fall. It is but a very short one, but the weight of such things is not measurable by their length, and two much shorter words express the round of our human existence. When I was reading David Copperfield here last Thursday night, I felt there was more than usual significance for me in Mr. Peggotty’s declaration, ‘My future life lies over the sea.’ And when I closed this book just now, I felt most keenly that I was shortly to establish such an alibi as would have satisfied even the elder Mr. Weller. The relations which have been set up between us in this place – relations sustained, on my side at least, by the most earnest devotion of myself to my task: sustained by yourself, on your side, by the readiest sympathy and kindest acknowledgement – must now be broken, for ever. But I entreat you to believe that in passing from my sight, you will not pass from my memory. I shall often, often recall you as I see you now, equally by my winter fire and in the green English summer weather. I shall never recall you as a mere public audience, but rather as a host of personal friends, and ever with the greatest gratitude, tenderness, and consideration. Ladies and gentlemen, I beg to bid you farewell – and I pray God bless you, and God bless the land in which I leave you. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/No._IV_Holiday_Romance_Romance._From_the_Pen_of_Miss_Nettie_Ashford/1868-05_No4_Holiday_Romance_Nettie_Ashford.pdf aa18e55ff91095711bb0cffb04510f3b 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 Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical 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. 18680501 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. PART IV. ROMANCE FROM THE PEN OF MISS NETTIE ASHFORD* There is a country, which I will show you when I get into Maps, where the children have everything their own way. It is a most delightful country to live in. The grown-up people are obliged to obey the children, and are never allowed to sit up to supper, except on their birthdays. The children order them to make jam and jelly and marmalade, and tarts and pies and puddings and all manner of pastry. If they say they won’t, they are put in the corner till they do. They are sometimes allowed to have some, but when they have some, they generally have powders given them afterwards. One of the inhabitants of this country, a truly sweet young creature of the name of Mrs. Orange, had the misfortune to be sadly plagued by her numerous family. Her parents required a great deal of looking after, and they had connections and companions who were scarcely ever out of mischief. So Mrs. Orange said to herself, "I really cannot be troubled with these torments any longer, I must put them all to school." Mrs. Orange took off her pinafore, and dressed herself very nicely, and took up her baby, and went out to call upon another lady of the name of Mrs. Lemon, who kept a Preparatory Establishment. Mrs. Orange stood upon the scraper to pull at the bell, and gave a Ring-ting-ting. Mrs. Lemon’s neat little housemaid, pulling up her socks as she came along the passage, answered the Ring-ting-ting. "Good morning," said Mrs. Orange. "Fine day. How do you do? Mrs. Lemon at home?" "Yes, ma’am." "Will you say Mrs. Orange and baby?" "Yes, ma’am. Walk in." Mrs. Orange’s baby was a very fine one, and real wax all over. Mrs. Lemon’s baby was leather and bran. However, when Mrs. Lemon came into the drawing-room with her baby in her arms, Mrs. Orange said politely, "Good-morning. Fine day. How do you do? And how is little Tootleum-Boots?" "Well, she is but poorly. Cutting her teeth, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "O, indeed, ma’am!" said Mrs. Orange. "No fits, I hope?" "No, ma’am." "How many teeth has she, ma’am?" "Five, ma’am." "My Emilia, ma’am, has eight," said Mrs. Orange. "Shall we lay them on the mantel-piece side by side, while we converse?" "By all means, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon."Hem!" "The first question is, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, —"I don’t bore you?" "Not in the least, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "Far from it, I assure you." "Then pray have you," said Mrs. Orange,"have you any vacancies?" "Yes, ma’am. How many might you require?" "Why, the truth is, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "I have come to the conclusion that my children,"—O, I forgot to say that they call the grown-up people children in that country,—"that my children are getting positively too much for me. Let me see. Two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. Have you as many as eight vacancies?" "I have just eight, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "Most fortunate! Terms moderate, I think?" "Very moderate, ma’am." "Diet good, I believe?" "Excellent, ma’am." "Unlimited?" "Unlimited." "Most satisfactory! Corporal punishment dispensed with?" "Why, we do occasionally shake," said Mrs. Lemon, "and we have slapped. But only in extreme cases." "Could I, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "could I see the establishment?" "With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. Mrs. Lemon took Mrs. Orange into the school-room, where there were a number of pupils. "Stand up, children!" said Mrs. Lemon, and they all stood up. Mrs. Orange whispered to Mrs. Lemon, "There is a pale, bald child with red whiskers, in disgrace. Might I ask what he has done?" "Come here, White," said Mrs. Lemon, "and tell this lady what you have been doing." "Betting on horses," said White, sulkily. "Are you sorry for it, you naughty child?" said Mrs. Lemon. "No," said White. "Sorry to lose, but shouldn’t be sorry to win." "There’s a vicious boy for you, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "Go along with you, sir. This is Brown, Mrs. Orange. O, a sad case, Brown’s! Never knows when he has had enough. Greedy. How is your gout, sir?" "Bad," said Brown. "What else can you expect?" said Mrs. Lemon. "Your stomach is the size of two. Go and take exercise directly. Mrs. Black, come here to me. Now, here is a child, Mrs. Orange, ma’am, who is always at play. She can’t be kept at home a single day together; always gadding about and spoiling her clothes. Play, play, play, play, from morning to night, and to morning again. How can she expect to improve?" "Don’t expect to improve," sulked Mrs. Black. "Don’t want to." "There is a specimen of her temper, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "To see her when she is tearing about, neglecting everything else, you would suppose her to be at least good-humored. But bless you, ma’am, she is as pert and flouncing a minx as ever you met with in all your days!" "You must have a great deal of trouble with them, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Ah, I have, indeed, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "What with their tempers, what with their quarrels, what with their never knowing what’s good for them, and what with their always wanting to domineer, deliver me from these unreasonable children!" "Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. So Mrs. Orange took up her baby and went home, and told the family that plagued her so that they were all going to be sent to school. They said they didn’t want to go to school, but she packed up their boxes, and packed them off. "O dear me, dear me! Rest and be thankful!" said Mrs. Orange, throwing herself back in her little arm-chair. "Those troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the Pigs!" Just then another lady, named Mrs. Alicumpaine, came calling at the street door with a Ring-ting-ting. "My dear Mrs. Alicumpaine," said Mrs. Orange, "how do you do? Pray stay to dinner. We have but a simple joint of sweet-stuff, followed by a plain dish of bread and treacle, but, if you will take us as you find us, it will be so kind!" "Don’t mention it," said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "I shall be too glad. But what do you think I have come for, ma’am? Guess, ma’am." "I really cannot guess, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Why, I am going to have a small juvenile party to-night," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, "and if you and Mr. Orange and baby would but join us, we should be complete." "More than charmed, I am sure!" said Mrs. Orange. "So kind of you!" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "But I hope the children won’t bore you?" "Dear things! Not at all," said Mrs. Orange. "I dote upon them." Mr. Orange here came home from the city, and he came too with a Ring-ting-ting. "James, love," said Mrs. Orange, "you look tired. What has been doing in the city to-day?" "Trap, bat, and ball, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "and it knocks a man up." "That dreadfully anxious city, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine; "so wearing, is it not?" "O, so trying!" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "John has lately been speculating in the peg-top ring; and I often say to him at night, 'John, is the result worth the wear and tear?'" Dinner was ready by this time: so they sat down to dinner; and while Mr. Orange carved the joint of sweet-stuff, he said, "It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. Jane, go down to the cellar, and fetch a bottle of the Upest Ginger-beer." At tea-time Mr. and Mrs. Orange, and baby, and Mrs. Alicumpaine, went off to Mrs. Alicumpaine’s house. The children had not come yet, but the ball-room was ready for them, decorated with paper flowers. "How very sweet!" said Mrs. Orange. "The dear things! How pleased they will be!" "I don’t care for children myself," said Mr. Orange, gaping. "Not for girls?" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "Come! You care for girls?" Mr. Orange shook his head and gaped again. "Frivolous and vain, ma’am." "My dear James," cried Mrs. Orange, who had been peeping about, "do look here. Here’s the supper for the darlings, ready laid in the room behind the folding-doors. Here’s their little pickled salmon, I do declare! And here’s their little salad, and their little roast beef and fowls, and their little pastry, and their wee, wee, wee champagne!" "Yes, I thought it best, ma’am," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, "that they should have their supper by themselves. Our table is in the corner here, where the gentlemen can have their wineglass of negus and their egg-sandwich, and their quiet game at beggar-my-neighbor, and look on. As for us, ma’am, we shall have quite enough to do to manage the company." "O, indeed, you may say so! Quite enough, ma’am!" said Mrs. Orange. The company began to come. The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, "Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched?" Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down." Then a number of other children came; boys by themselves, and girls by themselves, and boys and girls together. They didn’t behave at all well. Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, "Who are those? Don’t know them." Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, "How do?" Some of them had cups of tea or coffee handed to them by others, and said, "Thanks! Much!" A good many boys stood about, and felt their shirt-collars. Four tiresome fat boys would stand in the door-way and talk about the newspapers, till Mrs. Alicumpaine went to them and said, "My dears, I really cannot allow you to prevent people from coming in. I shall be truly sorry to do it, but, if you put yourself in everybody’s way, I must positively send you home." One boy, with a beard and a large white waistcoat, who stood straddling on the hearth-rug warming his coat-tails, was sent home. "Highly incorrect, my dear," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, handing him out of the room, "and I cannot permit it." There was a children’s band,—harp, cornet, and piano,—and Mrs. Alicumpaine and Mrs. Orange bustled among the children to persuade them to take partners and dance. But they were so obstinate! For quite a long time they would not be persuaded to take partners and dance. Most of the boys said, "Thanks. Much. But not at present." And most of the rest of the boys said, "Thanks. Much. But never do." "Oh! These children are very wearing," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. "Dear things! I dote upon them; but they ARE wearing," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. At last they did begin in a slow and melancholy way to slide about to the music, though even then they wouldn’t mind what they were told, but would have this partner, and wouldn’t have that partner, and showed temper about it. And they wouldn’t smile, no, not on any account they wouldn’t; but when the music stopped, went round and round the room in dismal twos, as if everybody else was dead. "Oh! it’s very hard indeed to get these vexing children to be entertained," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. "I dote upon the darlings; but it IS hard," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. They were trying children, that’s the truth. First, they wouldn’t sing when they were asked, and then, when everybody fully believed they wouldn’t, they would. "If you serve us so any more, my love," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to a tall child, with a good deal of white back, in mauve silk trimmed with lace, "it will be my painful privilege to offer you a bed, and to send you to it immediately." The girls were so ridiculously dressed, too, that they were in rags before supper. How could the boys help treading on their trains? And yet when their trains were trodden on, they often showed temper again, and looked as black, they did! However, they all seemed to be pleased when Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "Supper is ready, children!" And they went crowding and pushing in, as if they had had dry bread for dinner. "How are the children getting on?" said Mr. Orange to Mrs. Orange, when Mrs. Orange came to look after baby. Mrs. Orange had left baby on a shelf near Mr. Orange while he played at beggar-my-neighbor, and had asked him to keep his eye upon her now and then. "Most charmingly, my dear!" said Mrs. Orange. "So droll to see their little flirtations and jealousies! Do come and look!" "Much obliged to you, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "but I don’t care about children myself." So Mrs. Orange, having seen that baby was safe, went back without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper. "What are they doing now?" said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. "They are making speeches, and playing at Parliament," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. On hearing this, Mrs. Orange set off once more back again to Mr. Orange, and said, "James dear, do come. The children are playing at Parliament." "Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "but I don’t care about Parliament myself." So Mrs. Orange went once again without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper, to see them playing at Parliament. And she found some of the boys crying, "Hear, hear, hear!" while other boys cried "No, no!" and others, "Question!" "Spoke!" and all sorts of nonsense that ever you heard. Then one of those tiresome fat boys who had stopped the door-way told them he was on his legs (as if they couldn’t see that he wasn’t on his head, or on his anything else) to explain, and that, with the permission of his honorable friend, if he would allow him to call him so (another tiresome boy bowed), he would proceed to explain. Then he went on for a long time in a sing-song (whatever he meant!), did this troublesome fat boy, about that he held in his hand a glass, and about that he had come down to that house that night to discharge what he would call a public duty, and about that on the present occasion he would lay his hand (his other hand) upon his heart, and would tell honorable gentlemen that he was about to open the door to general approval. Then he opened the door by saying, "To our hostess!" and everybody else said "To our hostess!" and then there were cheers. Then another tiresome boy started up in sing-song, and then half a dozen noisy and nonsensical boys at once. But at last Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "I cannot have this din. Now, children, you have played at Parliament very nicely, but Parliament gets tiresome after a little while, and it’s time you left off, for you will soon be fetched." After another dance (with more tearing to rags than before supper), they began to be fetched, and you will be very glad to be told that the tiresome fat boy who had been on his legs was walked off first without any ceremony. When they were all gone, poor Mrs. Alicumpaine dropped upon a sofa and said to Mrs. Orange, "These children will be the death of me at last, ma’am, they will indeed!" "I quite adore them, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "but they DO want variety." Mr. Orange got his hat, and Mrs. Orange got her bonnet and her baby, and they set out to walk home. They had to pass Mrs. Lemon’s Preparatory Establishment on their way. "I wonder, James dear," said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, "whether the precious children are asleep!" "I don’t care much whether they are or not, myself," said Mr. Orange. "James dear!" "You dote upon them, you know," said Mr. Orange. "That’s another thing." "I do!" said Mrs. Orange rapturously. "O, I DO!" "I don’t," said Mr. Orange. "But I was thinking, James love," said Mrs. Orange, pressing his arm, "whether our dear good kind Mrs. Lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her." "If she was paid for it, I daresay she would," said Mr. Orange. "I adore them, James," said Mrs. Orange; "but SUPPOSE we pay her then!" This was what brought that country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in; the grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after Mr. and Mrs. Orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told. *Aged half-past six Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Our Young Folks 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 No. IV, Holiday Romance, 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Nettie Ashford' Description An account of the resource Published in Our Young Folks, vol. 4, no. v (May 1868), pp. 257-263. Edited by J.T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived HathiTrust, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000052381508</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-05 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Illustrated by John Gilbert Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Google-digitised. Digitised materials on Google Books published before 1922 are in the public domain. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1868-05_No4_Holiday_NettieAshford 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. 'Romance. From the Pen of Miss Nettie Ashford' (May 1868). Holiday Romance. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-05_No4_Holiday_NettieAshford">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1868-05_No4_Holiday_NettieAshford</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. PART IV. ROMANCE FROM THE PEN OF MISS NETTIE ASHFORD* There is a country, which I will show you when I get into Maps, where the children have everything their own way. It is a most delightful country to live in. The grown-up people are obliged to obey the children, and are never allowed to sit up to supper, except on their birthdays. The children order them to make jam and jelly and marmalade, and tarts and pies and puddings and all manner of pastry. If they say they won’t, they are put in the corner till they do. They are sometimes allowed to have some, but when they have some, they generally have powders given them afterwards. One of the inhabitants of this country, a truly sweet young creature of the name of Mrs. Orange, had the misfortune to be sadly plagued by her numerous family. Her parents required a great deal of looking after, and they had connections and companions who were scarcely ever out of mischief. So Mrs. Orange said to herself, "I really cannot be troubled with these torments any longer, I must put them all to school." Mrs. Orange took off her pinafore, and dressed herself very nicely, and took up her baby, and went out to call upon another lady of the name of Mrs. Lemon, who kept a Preparatory Establishment. Mrs. Orange stood upon the scraper to pull at the bell, and gave a Ring-ting-ting. Mrs. Lemon’s neat little housemaid, pulling up her socks as she came along the passage, answered the Ring-ting-ting. "Good morning," said Mrs. Orange. "Fine day. How do you do? Mrs. Lemon at home?" "Yes, ma’am." "Will you say Mrs. Orange and baby?" "Yes, ma’am. Walk in." Mrs. Orange’s baby was a very fine one, and real wax all over. Mrs. Lemon’s baby was leather and bran. However, when Mrs. Lemon came into the drawing-room with her baby in her arms, Mrs. Orange said politely, "Good-morning. Fine day. How do you do? And how is little Tootleum-Boots?" "Well, she is but poorly. Cutting her teeth, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "O, indeed, ma’am!" said Mrs. Orange. "No fits, I hope?" "No, ma’am." "How many teeth has she, ma’am?" "Five, ma’am." "My Emilia, ma’am, has eight," said Mrs. Orange. "Shall we lay them on the mantel-piece side by side, while we converse?" "By all means, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon."Hem!" "The first question is, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, —"I don’t bore you?" "Not in the least, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon."Far from it, I assure you." "Then pray have you," said Mrs. Orange,"have you any vacancies?" "Yes, ma’am. How many might you require?" "Why, the truth is, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "I have come to the conclusion that my children,"—O, I forgot to say that they call the grown-up people children in that country,—"that my children are getting positively too much for me. Let me see. Two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. Have you as many as eight vacancies?" "I have just eight, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "Most fortunate! Terms moderate, I think?" "Very moderate, ma’am." "Diet good, I believe?" "Excellent, ma’am." "Unlimited?" "Unlimited." "Most satisfactory! Corporal punishment dispensed with?" "Why, we do occasionally shake," said Mrs. Lemon, "and we have slapped. But only in extreme cases." "Could I, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "could I see the establishment?" "With the greatest of pleasure, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. Mrs. Lemon took Mrs. Orange into the school-room, where there were a number of pupils. "Stand up, children!" said Mrs. Lemon, and they all stood up. Mrs. Orange whispered to Mrs. Lemon, "There is a pale, bald child with red whiskers, in disgrace. Might I ask what he has done?" "Come here, White," said Mrs. Lemon, "and tell this lady what you have been doing." "Betting on horses," said White, sulkily. "Are you sorry for it, you naughty child?" said Mrs. Lemon. "No," said White. "Sorry to lose, but shouldn’t be sorry to win." "There’s a vicious boy for you, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "Go along with you, sir. This is Brown, Mrs. Orange. O, a sad case, Brown’s! Never knows when he has had enough. Greedy. How is your gout, sir?" "Bad," said Brown. "What else can you expect?" said Mrs. Lemon. "Your stomach is the size of two. Go and take exercise directly. Mrs. Black, come here to me. Now, here is a child, Mrs. Orange, ma’am, who is always at play. She can’t be kept at home a single day together; always gadding about and spoiling her clothes. Play, play, play, play, from morning to night, and to morning again. How can she expect to improve?" "Don’t expect to improve," sulked Mrs. Black. "Don’t want to." "There is a specimen of her temper, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "To see her when she is tearing about, neglecting everything else, you would suppose her to be at least good-humored. But bless you, ma’am, she is as pert and flouncing a minx as ever you met with in all your days!" "You must have a great deal of trouble with them, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Ah, I have, indeed, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. "What with their tempers, what with their quarrels, what with their never knowing what’s good for them, and what with their always wanting to domineer, deliver me from these unreasonable children!" "Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Well, I wish you good-morning, ma’am," said Mrs. Lemon. So Mrs. Orange took up her baby and went home, and told the family that plagued her so that they were all going to be sent to school. They said they didn’t want to go to school, but she packed up their boxes, and packed them off. "O dear me, dear me! Rest and be thankful!" said Mrs. Orange, throwing herself back in her little arm-chair. "Those troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the Pigs!" Just then another lady, named Mrs. Alicumpaine, came calling at the street door with a Ring-ting-ting. "My dear Mrs. Alicumpaine," said Mrs. Orange, "how do you do? Pray stay to dinner. We have but a simple joint of sweet-stuff, followed by a plain dish of bread and treacle, but, if you will take us as you find us, it will be so kind!" "Don’t mention it," said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "I shall be too glad. But what do you think I have come for, ma’am? Guess, ma’am." "I really cannot guess, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange. "Why, I am going to have a small juvenile party to-night," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, "and if you and Mr. Orange and baby would but join us, we should be complete." "More than charmed, I am sure!" said Mrs. Orange. "So kind of you!" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "But I hope the children won’t bore you?" "Dear things! Not at all," said Mrs. Orange. "I dote upon them." Mr. Orange here came home from the city, and he came too with a Ring-ting-ting. "James, love," said Mrs. Orange, "you look tired. What has been doing in the city to-day?" "Trap, bat, and ball, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "and it knocks a man up." "That dreadfully anxious city, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine; "so wearing, is it not?" "O, so trying!" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "John has lately been speculating in the peg-top ring; and I often say to him at night, 'John, is the result worth the wear and tear?'" Dinner was ready by this time: so they sat down to dinner; and while Mr. Orange carved the joint of sweet-stuff, he said, "It’s a poor heart that never rejoices. Jane, go down to the cellar, and fetch a bottle of the Upest Ginger-beer." At tea-time Mr. and Mrs. Orange, and baby, and Mrs. Alicumpaine, went off to Mrs. Alicumpaine’s house. The children had not come yet, but the ball-room was ready for them, decorated with paper flowers. "How very sweet!" said Mrs. Orange. "The dear things! How pleased they will be!" "I don’t care for children myself," said Mr. Orange, gaping. "Not for girls?" said Mrs. Alicumpaine. "Come! You care for girls?" Mr. Orange shook his head and gaped again. "Frivolous and vain, ma’am." "My dear James," cried Mrs. Orange, who had been peeping about, "do look here. Here’s the supper for the darlings, ready laid in the room behind the folding-doors. Here’s their little pickled salmon, I do declare! And here’s their little salad, and their little roast beef and fowls, and their little pastry, and their wee, wee, wee champagne!" "Yes, I thought it best, ma’am," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, "that they should have their supper by themselves. Our table is in the corner here, where the gentlemen can have their wineglass of negus and their egg-sandwich, and their quiet game at beggar-my-neighbor, and look on. As for us, ma’am, we shall have quite enough to do to manage the company." "O, indeed, you may say so! Quite enough, ma’am!" said Mrs. Orange. The company began to come. The first of them was a stout boy, with a white top-knot and spectacles. The housemaid brought him in and said, "Compliments, and at what time was he to be fetched?" Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "Not a moment later than ten. How do you do, sir? Go and sit down." Then a number of other children came; boys by themselves, and girls by themselves, and boys and girls together. They didn’t behave at all well. Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, "Who are those? Don’t know them." Some of them looked through quizzing-glasses at others, and said, "How do?" Some of them had cups of tea or coffee handed to them by others, and said, "Thanks! Much!" A good many boys stood about, and felt their shirt-collars. Four tiresome fat boys would stand in the door-way and talk about the newspapers, till Mrs. Alicumpaine went to them and said, "My dears, I really cannot allow you to prevent people from coming in. I shall be truly sorry to do it, but, if you put yourself in everybody’s way, I must positively send you home." One boy, with a beard and a large white waistcoat, who stood straddling on the hearth-rug warming his coat-tails, was sent home. "Highly incorrect, my dear," said Mrs. Alicumpaine, handing him out of the room, "and I cannot permit it." There was a children’s band,—harp, cornet, and piano,—and Mrs. Alicumpaine and Mrs. Orange bustled among the children to persuade them to take partners and dance. But they were so obstinate! For quite a long time they would not be persuaded to take partners and dance. Most of the boys said, "Thanks. Much. But not at present." And most of the rest of the boys said, "Thanks. Much. But never do." "Oh! These children are very wearing," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. "Dear things! I dote upon them; but they ARE wearing," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. At last they did begin in a slow and melancholy way to slide about to the music, though even then they wouldn’t mind what they were told, but would have this partner, and wouldn’t have that partner, and showed temper about it. And they wouldn’t smile, no, not on any account they wouldn’t; but when the music stopped, went round and round the room in dismal twos, as if everybody else was dead. "Oh! it’s very hard indeed to get these vexing children to be entertained," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. "I dote upon the darlings; but it IS hard," said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. They were trying children, that’s the truth. First, they wouldn’t sing when they were asked, and then, when everybody fully believed they wouldn’t, they would. "If you serve us so any more, my love," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to a tall child, with a good deal of white back, in mauve silk trimmed with lace, "it will be my painful privilege to offer you a bed, and to send you to it immediately." The girls were so ridiculously dressed, too, that they were in rags before supper. How could the boys help treading on their trains? And yet when their trains were trodden on, they often showed temper again, and looked as black, they did! However, they all seemed to be pleased when Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "Supper is ready, children!" And they went crowding and pushing in, as if they had had dry bread for dinner. "How are the children getting on?" said Mr. Orange to Mrs. Orange, when Mrs. Orange came to look after baby. Mrs. Orange had left baby on a shelf near Mr. Orange while he played at beggar-my-neighbor, and had asked him to keep his eye upon her now and then. "Most charmingly, my dear!" said Mrs. Orange. "So droll to see their little flirtations and jealousies! Do come and look!" "Much obliged to you, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "but I don’t care about children myself." So Mrs. Orange, having seen that baby was safe, went back without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper. "What are they doing now?" said Mrs. Orange to Mrs. Alicumpaine. "They are making speeches, and playing at Parliament," said Mrs. Alicumpaine to Mrs. Orange. On hearing this, Mrs. Orange set off once more back again to Mr. Orange, and said, "James dear, do come. The children are playing at Parliament." "Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Orange, "but I don’t care about Parliament myself." So Mrs. Orange went once again without Mr. Orange to the room where the children were having supper, to see them playing at Parliament. And she found some of the boys crying, "Hear, hear, hear!" while other boys cried "No, no!" and others, "Question!" "Spoke!" and all sorts of nonsense that ever you heard. Then one of those tiresome fat boys who had stopped the door-way told them he was on his legs (as if they couldn’t see that he wasn’t on his head, or on his anything else) to explain, and that, with the permission of his honorable friend, if he would allow him to call him so (another tiresome boy bowed), he would proceed to explain. Then he went on for a long time in a sing-song (whatever he meant!), did this troublesome fat boy, about that he held in his hand a glass, and about that he had come down to that house that night to discharge what he would call a public duty, and about that on the present occasion he would lay his hand (his other hand) upon his heart, and would tell honorable gentlemen that he was about to open the door to general approval. Then he opened the door by saying, "To our hostess!" and everybody else said "To our hostess!" and then there were cheers. Then another tiresome boy started up in sing-song, and then half a dozen noisy and nonsensical boys at once. But at last Mrs. Alicumpaine said, "I cannot have this din. Now, children, you have played at Parliament very nicely, but Parliament gets tiresome after a little while, and it’s time you left off, for you will soon be fetched." After another dance (with more tearing to rags than before supper), they began to be fetched, and you will be very glad to be told that the tiresome fat boy who had been on his legs was walked off first without any ceremony. When they were all gone, poor Mrs. Alicumpaine dropped upon a sofa and said to Mrs. Orange, "These children will be the death of me at last, ma’am, they will indeed!" "I quite adore them, ma’am," said Mrs. Orange, "but they DO want variety." Mr. Orange got his hat, and Mrs. Orange got her bonnet and her baby, and they set out to walk home. They had to pass Mrs. Lemon’s Preparatory Establishment on their way. "I wonder, James dear," said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, "whether the precious children are asleep!" "I don’t care much whether they are or not, myself," said Mr. Orange. "James dear!" "You dote upon them, you know," said Mr. Orange. "That’s another thing." "I do!" said Mrs. Orange rapturously. "O, I DO!" "I don’t," said Mr. Orange. "But I was thinking, James love," said Mrs. Orange, pressing his arm, "whether our dear good kind Mrs. Lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her." "If she was paid for it, I daresay she would," said Mr. Orange. "I adore them, James," said Mrs. Orange; "but SUPPOSE we pay her then!" This was what brought that country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in; the grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after Mr. and Mrs. Orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told. *Aged half-past six 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 Liverpool Venue Where the speech was given Saint George's Hall 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. 18690410 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, Ladies and Gentlemen, Although I have become so well accustomed of late to the sound of my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion is, believe me, very very different in respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea from hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when quite alone, so you can form no conception, from the specimen before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and again in some of the innermost moments of my future life. Often and often then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant scene, and will reilluminate this: – banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled Whose garlands dead And all but I departed: and faithful to this place in its present aspect, I will mark and observe it exactly as it stands – not one man’s seat empty, not one woman’s fair face absent – while life and memory abide by me. Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment’s untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to them through the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremost among the great places outside London to which I looked with eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this? Not merely because of the reputation of its citizens for generous estimation of the arts; not merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of its great self-educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had been a home to me since the well-remembered day when its blessed roofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion of my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the Atlantic seven-and-twenty years ago. Not for one of those considerations; but because it had been my happiness to have a public opportunity of testing the spirit of its people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation of Shakespeare’s house. On another occasion I had ventured to address Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles. On still another occasion I had addressed it in the cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the kindred arts. And on each and all the response had been unsurpassably spontaneous, open-handed, and munificent. Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a small illustration of my present position from my own peculiar craft, I would say that there is this objection, in writing fiction, to giving the story an autobiographical form: that through whatever dangers the narrator may pass, it is clear unfortunately to the reader beforehand that he must have come through them somehow, else he could not have lived to tell the tale. Now in speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such honours as those with which you have enriched me, there is this singular difficulty in returning thanks, that the speaker must infallibly come back to himself through whatever oratorical disasters he may languish on the road. Let me, therefore, – let me, then, take the plainer and simpler middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let me assure you that whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved in the acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly refined which has seven times passed the furnace, so a fancy may be said to become more and more refined each time it passes through the human heart. You have, and you know you have, brought to the consideration of me that quality in yourselves without which I should have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, and your tears have overflowed my eyes. All that I can claim for myself, in establishing the relations which exist between us, is constant fidelity to hard work. My literary brethren about me, of whom I am so proud to see so many, know very well how true it is, of all art, that what seems the easiest done is oftentimes the most difficult to do, and that the smallest truth may come of the greatest pains, – much, as it occurred to me at Manchester, the other day, the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth’s wonderful measuring machine comes at last, though Heaven, Manchester, and its maker only knew how much hammering and firing were required to bring it out. And my companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think it is right the public should know too, that in our careful toil and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence – not in any little gifts, misused by fits and starts – lies our highest duty at once to our calling, to one another, to ourselves and to you. Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to clear myself of two very unexpected accusations. The first is a most singular charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord Houghton: that I have been somewhat unconscious of the merits of the House of Lords. Now, ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have had some not altogether obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly; seeing that I had some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England by the name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard with some admiration and affection another obscure peer wholly unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have had for some years some slight admiration of the extraordinary judicial properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice popularly known by the name of Lord Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature, than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend’s accusation. When I asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he replied that he had never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all; because it is a remarkable fact, that in the days when that depreciative and profoundly unnatural character was invented, there was no Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House of Commons, a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton Milnes. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude – for the present; to conclude, I close with the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious, and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a dozen plain words. When I first took Literature as my profession in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, Literature should be my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time that it was not so well understood in England as it was in other countries that Literature was a dignified profession, by which any man might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself that in my person Literature should stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is no consideration on earth which would induce me to break that bargain. Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it had not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost my heart, at between half-past six and half-past seven o’clock tonight. Gentlemen – for I address myself solely to you – the nature of the toast I am about to propose cannot, I think, be better or more briefly expressed than in a short quotation from Shakespeare, slightly altered: Scene: A banqueting hall. Thunder – of admiration. Lightning – of eyes. Enter Macbeth and Banquo: Banquo: Who are these, So sparkling and so bright in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth And yet are on’t? Reply: Sir, these are the Lancashire Witches. Pondering this turn in my mind just now, and looking round this magnificent hall, I naturally pondered also on the legend of its patron saint. It is recorded of Saint George that he was even more devoted to love and beauty than the other six Champions of Christendom. And I, his loyal imitator and disciple, have moulded myself completely upon him in looking around me here. How happy could I be with either, Were t’other dear charmer away, is a sentiment that was first put into writing some few ages after Saint George’s time; but I have a profound conviction that he would have originated it if he could have projected himself into this occasion. However, he was much better employed in killing the Dragon. Oh yes! – much better employed in killing the Dragon, who would have devoured the lady. And he was much better employed still, in marrying the lady, and enslaving himself by freeing her. The legend, as I remember, goes on to relate that the accursed brood of dragons after that time retired into inaccessible solitudes, and was seen no more – except on very special occasions. Now, it occurs to me, that if any of those dragons should yet be lingering in retirement, and if they should have, in virtue of any bewitched sixth sense, the slightest notion of the havoc that will be wrought amongst Saint George’s descendants by this assembly of glowing beauty here tonight, then the dragon race is even with Saint George at last, and is most terribly avenged. Gentlemen, I give you ‘The Ladies’. Ladies and gentlemen, the learned lady who has just sat down has completely mistaken me. I referred not to my having been enslaved tonight by one lady, or two, but by all present; and when I made the quotation from Captain Macheath, I made a quotation from a gentleman who, though he happened at the moment to be attended by only two ladies, was notoriously the slave, as I am, of the whole sex. I have no, ladies and gentlemen, to propose to you a toast inseparable from the enterprise of Liverpool – from the public honour and public spirit of Liverpool; equally inseparable from the stately streets and buildings around us, and from the hospitals, schools, and free libraries, and those great monuments of consideration for the many which have made this place an example to England. I have to propose to you to drink ‘His Worship the Mayor and the Corporation of this Town’. 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 Banquet in His Honour, Liverpool Description An account of the resource Speeches given at a Banquet in His Honour, Liverpool (10 April 1869). 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 1869-04-10 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1869-04-10_Speech_Banquet-in-His-Honour-Liverpool 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. 'Speeches given at a Banquet in His Honour, Liverpool' (10 April 1869). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-04-10_Speech_Banquet-in-His-Honour-Liverpool">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-04-10_Speech_Banquet-in-His-Honour-Liverpool</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, Although I have become so well accustomed of late to the sound of my own voice in this neighbourhood as to hear it with perfect composure, the occasion is, believe me, very very different in respect of those overwhelming voices of yours. As Professor Wilson once confided to me in Edinburgh that I had not the least idea from hearing him in public, what a magnificent speaker he found himself to be when quite alone, so you can form no conception, from the specimen before you, of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and again in some of the innermost moments of my future life. Often and often then, God willing, my memory will recall this brilliant scene, and will reilluminate this: – banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled Whose garlands dead And all but I departed: and faithful to this place in its present aspect, I will mark and observe it exactly as it stands – not one man’s seat empty, not one woman’s fair face absent – while life and memory abide by me. Mr. Mayor, Lord Dufferin in his speech so affecting to me, so eloquently uttered, and so rapturously received, made a graceful and gracious allusion to the immediate occasion of my present visit to your noble city. It is no homage to Liverpool, based upon a moment’s untrustworthy enthusiasm, but it is the solid fact built upon the rock of experience that when I first made up my mind, after considerable deliberation, systematically to meet my readers in large numbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to them through the breath of life, Liverpool stood foremost among the great places outside London to which I looked with eager confidence and pleasure. And why was this? Not merely because of the reputation of its citizens for generous estimation of the arts; not merely because I had unworthily filled the chair of its great self-educational institution long ago; not merely because the place had been a home to me since the well-remembered day when its blessed roofs and steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me on the occasion of my first sailing away to see my generous friends across the Atlantic seven-and-twenty years ago. Not for one of those considerations; but because it had been my happiness to have a public opportunity of testing the spirit of its people. I had asked Liverpool for help towards the worthy preservation of Shakespeare’s house. On another occasion I had ventured to address Liverpool in the names of Leigh Hunt and Sheridan Knowles. On still another occasion I had addressed it in the cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the kindred arts. And on each and all the response had been unsurpassably spontaneous, open-handed, and munificent. Mr. Mayor, and ladies and gentlemen, if I may venture to take a small illustration of my present position from my own peculiar craft, I would say that there is this objection, in writing fiction, to giving the story an autobiographical form: that through whatever dangers the narrator may pass, it is clear unfortunately to the reader beforehand that he must have come through them somehow, else he could not have lived to tell the tale. Now in speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such honours as those with which you have enriched me, there is this singular difficulty in returning thanks, that the speaker must infallibly come back to himself through whatever oratorical disasters he may languish on the road. Let me, therefore, –  let me, then, take the plainer and simpler middle course of dividing my subject equally between myself and you. Let me assure you that whatever you have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen or by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly improved in the acceptance. As the gold is said to be doubly and trebly refined which has seven times passed the furnace, so a fancy may be said to become more and more refined each time it passes through the human heart. You have, and you know you have, brought to the consideration of me that quality in yourselves without which I should have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated mine, your laughter has made me laugh, and your tears have overflowed my eyes. All that I can claim for myself, in establishing the relations which exist between us, is constant fidelity to hard work. My literary brethren about me, of whom I am so proud to see so many, know very well how true it is, of all art, that what seems the easiest done is oftentimes the most difficult to do, and that the smallest truth may come of the greatest pains, – much, as it occurred to me at Manchester, the other day, the sensitive touch of Mr. Whitworth’s wonderful measuring machine comes at last, though Heaven, Manchester, and its maker only knew how much hammering and firing were required to bring it out. And my companions-in-arms know thoroughly well, and I think it is right the public should know too, that in our careful toil and trouble, and in our steady striving for excellence – not in any little gifts, misused by fits and starts – lies our highest duty at once to our calling, to one another, to ourselves and to you. Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down I find that I have to clear myself of two very unexpected accusations. The first is a most singular charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord Houghton: that I have been somewhat unconscious of the merits of the House of Lords. Now, ladies and gentlemen, seeing that I have had some not altogether obscure or unknown personal friends in that assembly; seeing that I had some little association with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately known in England by the name of Lord Brougham; seeing that I regard with some admiration and affection another obscure peer wholly unknown in literary circles, called Lord Lytton; seeing also that I have had for some years some slight admiration of the extraordinary judicial properties and amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief Justice popularly known by the name of Lord Cockburn; and also seeing that there is no man in England whom I respect more in his public capacity, whom I love more in his private capacity, or from whom I have received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature, than another obscure nobleman called Lord Russell; taking these circumstances into consideration, I was rather amazed by my noble friend’s accusation. When I asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil possessed him to make this charge, he replied that he had never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I understood it all; because it is a remarkable fact, that in the days when that depreciative and profoundly unnatural character was invented, there was no Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. And there was in the House of Commons, a rather indifferent member called Richard Monckton Milnes. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude – for the present; to conclude, I close with the other charge of my noble friend, and here I am more serious, and I may be allowed perhaps to express my seriousness in half a dozen plain words. When I first took Literature as my profession in England, I calmly resolved within myself that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, Literature should be my sole profession. It appeared to me at that time that it was not so well understood in England as it was in other countries that Literature was a dignified profession, by which any man might stand or fall. I made a compact with myself that in my person Literature should stand, and by itself, of itself, and for itself; and there is no consideration on earth which would induce me to break that bargain. Ladies and gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great kindness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have drunk my health. I should have thanked you with all my heart if it had not so unfortunately happened that, for many sufficient reasons, I lost my heart, at between half-past six and half-past seven o’clock tonight. Gentlemen – for I address myself solely to you – the nature of the toast I am about to propose cannot, I think, be better or more briefly expressed than in a short quotation from Shakespeare, slightly altered: Scene: A banqueting hall. Thunder – of admiration. Lightning – of eyes. Enter Macbeth and Banquo: Banquo: Who are these, So sparkling and so bright in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth And yet are on’t? Reply: Sir, these are the Lancashire Witches. Pondering this turn in my mind just now, and looking round this magnificent hall, I naturally pondered also on the legend of its patron saint. It is recorded of Saint George that he was even more devoted to love and beauty than the other six Champions of Christendom. And I, his loyal imitator and disciple, have moulded myself completely upon him in looking around me here. How happy could I be with either, Were t’other dear charmer away, is a sentiment that was first put into writing some few ages after Saint George’s time; but I have a profound conviction that he would have originated it if he could have projected himself into this occasion. However, he was much better employed in killing the Dragon. Oh yes! – much better employed in killing the Dragon, who would have devoured the lady. And he was much better employed still, in marrying the lady, and enslaving himself by freeing her. The legend, as I remember, goes on to relate that the accursed brood of dragons after that time retired into inaccessible solitudes, and was seen no more – except on very special occasions. Now, it occurs to me, that if any of those dragons should yet be lingering in retirement, and if they should have, in virtue of any bewitched sixth sense, the slightest notion of the havoc that will be wrought amongst Saint George’s descendants by this assembly of glowing beauty here tonight, then the dragon race is even with Saint George at last, and is most terribly avenged. Gentlemen, I give you ‘The Ladies’. Ladies and gentlemen, the learned lady who has just sat down has completely mistaken me. I referred not to my having been enslaved tonight by one lady, or two, but by all present; and when I made the quotation from Captain Macheath, I made a quotation from a gentleman who, though he happened at the moment to be attended by only two ladies, was notoriously the slave, as I am, of the whole sex. I have now, ladies and gentlemen, to propose to you a toast inseparable from the enterprise of Liverpool – from the public honour and public spirit of Liverpool; equally inseparable from the stately streets and buildings around us, and from the hospitals, schools, and free libraries, and those great monuments of consideration for the many which have made this place an example to England. I have to propose to you to drink ‘His Worship the Mayor and the Corporation of this Town’. 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 Sydenham Venue Where the speech was given Crystal Palace 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. 18690830 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. Gentlemen, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spurt and then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the London Rowing Club to this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in the name of the other invited visitors present – always excepting the distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting – to thank the President for the modesty and courtesy with which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of his evening’s duty. It is the more graceful in him to do this because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it himself; as this is a case, of all others, in which it is according to good taste and the very principles of things that the great social vice, speech-making, should hide its diminished head before the great social virtue, action. However, there is an ancient story of a lady who threw her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant lover to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferring from the action the worth of the lady, risked his life for the glove, and then threw it lightly in her face as a token of his eternal adieu. I take up the President’s glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and of my real interest in the cause in which it was thrown down, and I now profess my readiness to do even an injustice to the duty which he has assigned me. Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in the United States within a short time before my last visit to that hospitable land, containing ninety-five biographies of young men, for the most part well born and well nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits of life, who, when the flag of their country waved them from those quiet paths in which they were seeking distinction of various kinds, took arms in the dread civil war which elicited so much bravery upon both sides, and died in the defence of their country. These great spirits displayed extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, of military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great masses of men, in surprising readiness of self-resource for the general good, in humanely treating the sick and wounded, and in winning to themselves a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had all risen to be distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; and they had all been educated in one school – Harvard University. Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not recognize in her boat’s crew the leaven of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she has now a greater right than ever to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to her breast when they return with resounding acclamations? It is related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told a lady who foolishly protested that she would like to see a great victory, that there was only one thing worse than a victory, and that was a great defeat. But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term, a great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of daring fellows who make a preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles to meet great conquerors on their own domain, who do not want the stimulus of friends and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear land in the shouts and cheers of another, and who strive to the last with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me that such a defeat is a great, a noble, part of a manly wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essence and life-blood of such a defeat to become at last a sure victory. Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to propose, and you know equally well that in thus glancing first towards our friends of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers from a distance – a courtesy extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, to any imaginable limits except allowing them to take first place in last Friday’s match, if they could by any human and honourable means be kept in the second. I will not avail myself of the opportunity provided for me by the absence of the greater part of the Oxford crew – indeed, of all but one, and that its most modest and devoted member – I will not avail myself of the golden opportunity considerately provided for me, to say a great deal in honour of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who attends here attends under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if he were less in earnest his filial affection could not possibly allow him to be here. It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you that I should say, here and now, that we all unite with one accord in regarding the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England, and that we should consider it very weak indeed to set anything short of England’s very best in opposition to, or competition with America; though it certainly must be confessed – I am bound in common justice to admit it – it must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented gentleman remark last Friday night, about ten o’clock, when he was baiting a very small horse in the Strand – he was one of eleven with pipes in a chaise cart – I say it must be admitted in disparagement of the Oxford men on the authority of this gentleman, that they have won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and that ‘they ought to do it, but they won’t’. Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant spectacle which they presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure I express not only your feeling and my feeling, but also the feeling of the whole people of England, when I cordially give them welcome to our English waters and English ground, and also bid them ‘God speed’ in their voyage home. As the greater includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I think it is no very bold augury to predict that in the friendly contests yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both sides of the Atlantic, there are great river triumphs for Harvard University yet in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English portion of this audience that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a common seaman ‘Two Years Before the Mast’, and who wrote about the best sea book in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those American gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with the men who believed in him. And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received on their return home will find a ready echo in every corner of England, and, further, that none of their immediate countrymen – I use the qualifying term ‘immediate’, for we are, as our President said, fellow-countrymen, thank God – that none of their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what they did in this great race, can be more thoroughly imbued with a sense of their indomitable courage, and their high deserts, than are their rivals and their hosts tonight. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘The Crews of Harvard and Oxford University’, and I beg to couple with that toast the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan. 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 London Rowing Club Banquet for the Harvard and Oxford Crews Description An account of the resource Speech at the London Rowing Club Banquet for the Harvard and Oxford Crews (30 August 1869). 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 1869-08-30 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1869-08-30_Speech_London-Rowing-Club-Banquet-for-the-Harvard-and-Oxford-Crews 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 London Rowing Club Banquet for the Harvard and Oxford Crews' (30 August 1869). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-08-30_Speech_London-Rowing-Club-Banquet-for-the-Harvard-and-Oxford-Crews">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-08-30_Speech_London-Rowing-Club-Banquet-for-the-Harvard-and-Oxford-Crews</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, flushed with fireworks, I can warrant myself to you as about to imitate those gorgeous illusions by making a brief spurt and then dying out. And, first of all, as an invited visitor of the London Rowing Club to this most interesting occasion, I will beg, in the name of the other invited visitors present – always excepting the distinguished guests who are the cause of our meeting – to thank the President for the modesty and courtesy with which he has deputed to one of us the most agreeable part of his evening’s duty. It is the more graceful in him to do this because he can hardly fail to see that he might very easily do it himself; as this is a case, of all others, in which it is according to good taste and the very principles of things that the great social vice, speech-making, should hide its diminished head before the great social virtue, action. However, there is an ancient story of a lady who threw her glove into an arena full of wild beasts to tempt her attendant lover to climb down and reclaim it. The lover, rightly inferring from the action the worth of the lady, risked his life for the glove, and then threw it lightly in her face as a token of his eternal adieu. I take up the President’s glove, on the contrary, as a proof of his much higher worth, and of my real interest in the cause in which it was thrown down, and I now profess my readiness to do even an injustice to the duty which he has assigned me. Gentlemen, a very remarkable and affecting volume was published in the United States within a short time before my last visit to that hospitable land, containing ninety-five biographies of young men, for the most part well born and well nurtured, and trained in various peaceful pursuits of life, who, when the flag of their country waved them from those quiet paths in which they were seeking distinction of various kinds, took arms in the dread civil war which elicited so much bravery upon both sides, and died in the defence of their country. These great spirits displayed extraordinary aptitude in the acquisition, even in the invention, of military tactics, in the combining and commanding of great masses of men, in surprising readiness of self-resource for the general good, in humanely treating the sick and wounded, and in winning to themselves a very rare amount of personal confidence and trust. They had all risen to be distinguished soldiers; they had all done deeds of great heroism; they had all combined with their valour and self-devotion a serene cheerfulness, a quiet modesty, and a truly Christian spirit; and they had all been educated in one school – Harvard University. Gentlemen, nothing was more remarkable in these fine descendants of our forefathers than the invincible determination with which they fought against odds, and the undauntable spirit with which they resisted defeat. I ask you, who will say after last Friday that Harvard University is less true to herself in peace than she was in war? I ask you, who will not recognize in her boat’s crew the leaven of her soldiers, and who does not feel that she has now a greater right than ever to be proud of her sons, and take these sons to her breast when they return with resounding acclamations? It is related of the Duke of Wellington that he once told a lady who foolishly protested that she would like to see a great victory, that there was only one thing worse than a victory, and that was a great defeat. But, gentlemen, there is another sense in which to use the term, a great defeat. Such is the defeat of a handful of daring fellows who make a preliminary dash of three or four thousand stormy miles to meet great conquerors on their own domain, who do not want the stimulus of friends and home, but who sufficiently hear and feel their own dear land in the shouts and cheers of another, and who strive to the last with a desperate tenacity that makes the beating of them a new feather in the proudest cap. Gentlemen, you agree with me that such a defeat is a great, a noble, part of a manly wholesome action; and I say that it is in the essence and life-blood of such a defeat to become at last a sure victory. Now, gentlemen, you know perfectly well the toast I am going to propose, and you know equally well that in thus glancing first towards our friends of the white stripes, I merely anticipate and respond to the instinctive courtesy of Oxford towards our brothers from a distance – a courtesy extending, I hope, and I do not doubt, to any imaginable limits except allowing them to take first place in last Friday’s match, if they could by any human and honourable means be kept in the second. I will not avail myself of the opportunity provided for me by the absence of the greater part of the Oxford crew – indeed, of all but one, and that its most modest and devoted member – I will not avail myself of the golden opportunity considerately provided for me, to say a great deal in honour of the Oxford crew. I know that the gentleman who attends here attends under unusual anxieties and difficulties, and that if he were less in earnest his filial affection could not possibly allow him to be here. It is therefore enough for me, gentlemen, and enough for you that I should say, here and now, that we all unite with one accord in regarding the Oxford crew as the pride and flower of England, and that we should consider it very weak indeed to set anything short of England’s very best in opposition to, or competition with America; though it certainly must be confessed – I am bound in common justice to admit it – it must be confessed in disparagement of the Oxford men, as I heard a discontented gentleman remark last Friday night, about ten o’clock, when he was baiting a very small horse in the Strand – he was one of eleven with pipes in a chaise cart – I say it must be admitted in disparagement of the Oxford men on the authority of this gentleman, that they have won so often that they could afford to lose a little now, and that ‘they ought to do it, but they won’t’. Gentlemen, in drinking to both crews, and in offering the poor testimony of our thanks in acknowledgment of the gallant spectacle which they presented to countless thousands last Friday, I am sure I express not only your feeling and my feeling, but also the feeling of the whole people of England, when I cordially give them welcome to our English waters and English ground, and also bid them ‘God speed’ in their voyage home. As the greater includes the less, and the sea holds the river, so I think it is no very bold augury to predict that in the friendly contests yet to come and to take place, I hope, on both sides of the Atlantic, there are great river triumphs for Harvard University yet in store. Gentlemen, I warn the English portion of this audience that these are very dangerous men. Remember that it was an undergraduate of Harvard University who served as a common seaman ‘Two Years Before the Mast’, and who wrote about the best sea book in the English tongue. Remember that it was one of those American gentlemen who sailed his mite of a yacht across the Atlantic in mid-winter, and who sailed in her to sink or swim with the men who believed in him. And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, animated by your cordial acquiescence, I will take upon myself to assure our brothers from a distance that the utmost enthusiasm with which they can be received on their return home will find a ready echo in every corner of England, and, further, that none of their immediate countrymen – I use the qualifying term ‘immediate’, for we are, as our President said, fellow-countrymen, thank God – that none of their compatriots who saw, or who will read of, what they did in this great race, can be more thoroughly imbued with a sense of their indomitable courage, and their high deserts, than are their rivals and their hosts tonight. Gentlemen, I beg to propose to you to drink ‘The Crews of Harvard and Oxford University’, and I beg to couple with that toast the names of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Willan.