36 10 361 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Birmingham Venue Where the speech was given Town 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. 18690927 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, We often hear of our own country that it is an over-populated one, that it is an over-pauperized one, and that it is an over-taxed one. Now I entertain, especially of late time, the heretical belief that it is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of public speech-making going about in various directions which might be advantageously dispensed with. If I were free to act upon this conviction, as president for the time being of the great Institution so numerously represented here, I should at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of a highly edifying, because of a very exemplary, character. But I happen to be the Institution’s willing servant: not its imperious master; and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech – not to say brazen – from whomsoever it exalts to my high office. So, some African tribes – not to draw the comparison disrespectfully – some savage African tribes, when they make a king, require him perhaps to achieve an exciting foot-race under the stimulus of considerable prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentally knocked about the head by his privy council, or perhaps to be dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash – at all events, to undergo some purifying ordeal in the presence of his admiring subjects. I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned by your constituted authorities that whatever I might happen to say here tonight would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance upon a new term of study by the members of your various classes; for besides that the phrase is something high-sounding for my taste, I avow that I do look forward to that blessed time when every man shall inaugurate his own work for himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then have inaugurated a new era indeed, and one in which the Lord’s Prayer will be a fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering, however, that you may call anything by any name without in the least changing its nature – bethinking myself that you may, if you be so minded, call a butterfly a buffalo, without advancing a hair’s breadth towards making it one – I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to the very homely intention I had previously formed. This was merely to tell you, the members, students, and friends, of the Birmingham and Midland Institute; firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know (this is a very popular oratorical theme); secondly, what your Institution has done; thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its president for the time being, remains for it to do, and not to do. Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the abstract advantages of knowledge, or the beauties of self-improvement. If you had any such requirement, you would not be here. I conceive that you are here, because you have become thoroughly penetrated with such truths, either in your own persons or in the persons of some striving fellow creatures, on whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I conceive that you are here because you conceive the welfare of a great chiefly adult educational establishment, whose doors stand really open to all sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable from the best welfare of your great town and its neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say that we all – every one of us – perfectly well know that the benefits of such an establishment must extend far beyond the limits of this midland county fires and smoke, and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole community, I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage, in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, that a mere spoken word – a mere syllable thrown into the air – may go on reverberating through illimitable space for ever and for ever, seeing that there is no rim against which it can strike: no boundary at which it can possibly arrive. Similarly it may be said – not as an ingenious speculation, but as a steadfast and absolute fact – that human calculation cannot limit the influence of one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, modestly possessed, and faithfully used. As astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain that every man, however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for good and impressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he cannot really improve himself without in some degree improving other men. And observe: this is especially the case when he has improved himself in the teeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to a neglected or an ill-taught youth, in the few daily hours remaining to him after ten or twelve hours of labour, in the few pauses and intervals of a life of toil; for then his fellow creatures and companions have assurance that he can have known no favouring conditions, and that they can do what he has done, in wresting some enlightenment and self-respect from what Lord Lytton finely calls Those twin gaolers of the daring heart, Low birth and iron fortune. As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your own observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there can be very few persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who would contest the position that the more cultivated the employed the better for the employer, and the more cultivated the employer the better for the employed; therefore, my reference to what you do not want to know shall here cease and determine. Next, with reference to what your Institution has done; on my summary, which shall be as concise and as correct as my information and my remembrance of it may render possible, I desire to lay emphatic stress. Your Institution, sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen study together, has outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of its vigorous vitality that of its industrial students almost one-half are artisans in the receipt of weekly wages. I think I am correct in saying that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen’s sons. I note with particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the gentler sex, without whom no Institution whatever can truly claim to be either a civilizing or a civilized one. The increased attendance at your educational classes is always greatest on the part of the artisans – the class within my experience the least reached in any similar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is the oftenest and most constantly taken in vain. But it is especially reached here, not improbably because it is, as it should be, specially addressed; in the foundation of the industrial department, in the allotment of the direction of the society’s affairs, and in the establishment of what are called its penny classes – a bold and, I am happy to say, a triumphantly successful experiment, which enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects directly bearing on his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness: as arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical geography, and singing: on payment of the astounding low fee of a single penny every time he attends a class. I beg emphatically to say that I look on this as one of the most remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof of the artisan, and if your Institution had done nothing else in all its life, I would take my stand by it on its having done this. Apart, however, from the industrial department, it has its general department, offering all the advantages of a first-class literary Institution. It has its reading rooms, its library, its chemical laboratory, its museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive interest, delivered by lecturers of the highest qualifications. Very well. But it may be asked, what are the practical results of these appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that your Institution should have educated those who are now its teachers. That would be a remarkable fact. Supposing, besides, that it should, so to speak, have educated education, all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers into many and divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should be presently snapped up for the laboratory of the great and famous hospital. Suppose that in nine years its industrial students should have carried off a round dozen of the much-competed-for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the Government departments, besides two local prizes originating in the generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council, having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the Whitworth prizes, should find him here. Suppose that one of your industrial students should turn his chemical studies to the practical account of extracting gold from waste colour water, and of taking it into custody, in the very act of running away by the thousand pounds worth, down the town drains. Suppose another should perceive in his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss with his master’s until then inscrutably defective furnace, and should go straight at it – to the great annual saving of that master – and put it right. Suppose another should puzzle out the means, until then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of coloured glass. Suppose another should qualify himself to vanquish one by one, as they daily arose, all the little difficulties incidental to his calling as an electro-plater, and should be applied to by his companions in the shop ,in all emergencies, under the name of the ‘Encyclopædia’. Suppose a long procession of such cases, and then consider that these are not suppositions at all, but are plain unvarnished facts, culminating in the one special and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, every one of the Institution’s industrial students who have taken its prizes within ten years, have since climbed to a higher station in his way of life. As to the extent to which the Institution encourages the artisan to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the little shackling prejudices perchance existing in his trade when they will not bear the test of inquiry, that is only to be equalled by the extent to which it encourages him to feel. There is a certain tone of modest manliness pervading all the little facts which I have looked through which I found remarkably impressive. The decided objection on the part of the industrial students to attend the classes in their working clothes breathes this tone, as being a graceful and yet at the same time perfectly independent recognition of the place and of one another. And this tone is admirably illustrated in the case of a poor bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses through illness in his family, had consequently been obliged to part with his best clothes; and who, being therefore missed from the classes in which he had been noticed as a very hard worker, was entreated to attend them in his working clothes. He replied, ‘No, it was not possible. It must not be thought of. It must not come into question for a moment. It might be supposed that he did it to attract attention.’ And the same man being offered by one of the officers a loan of money to enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the ground that he came to the Institution to learn, and to know better how to help himself: not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help, from any man. Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the Institution, because it is no isolated instance, but it is a fair and honourable sample of the spirit of this place, and as such I put it at the conclusion – though last, certainly not least – of my references to what your Institution has indubitably done. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble opinion of its evanescent officer before you, remains for the Institution to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it, towards the closing pages of his grand history of the French Revolution, ‘This with due brevity disposed of, then courage, oh listener, I see land!’ I earnestly hope – and I firmly believe – that your Institution will do henceforth as it has done hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and believe that it will know among its members no distinction of person, creed, or party; but that it will conserve its place of assemblage as a high and pure ground, on which all such considerations shall merge into the one universal, heaven-sent aspiration of the human soul to be wiser and better. I hope and believe that it will always be expansive and elastic; for ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging the circle of its members, and of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater and greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition to stand still than time does, or life does, or the seasons do. And above all this, I hope, and I feel confident from its antecedents, that it will never allow any consideration on the face of the earth to induce it to patronize or to be patronized, for I verily believe that the bestowal and receipt of patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has done more to prevent really good objects, and to lower really high character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest antagonism could have effected in twice the time. I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland Institute will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the timid opponents of intellectual progress; but in this connexion generally I cannot forbear from offering a remark which is much upon my mind. It is commonly assumed – much too commonly – that this age is a material age, and that a material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained lately to see this assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for which I have a high respect, and desire to have a higher. I am afraid that by dint of constantly being reiterated and reiterated, without protest, this assumption – which I take leave altogether to deny – may be accepted by the more unthinking part of the public as unquestionably true; just as certain caricaturists and painters professedly making a portrait of some public man, which was not in the least like him, to begin with, have gone on repeating and repeating it, until the public came to believe that it must be exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, and really have at last, in the fullness of time, grown almost to resent upon him their tardy discovery, that he was not like it. I confess, standing here in this responsible situation, that I do not understand this much-used and much-abused phrase, a ‘material age’, I cannot comprehend – if anybody can: which I very much doubt – its logical signification. For instance: has electricity become more material in the mind of any sane, or moderately insane man, woman, or child, because of the discovery that in the good providence of God it was made available for the service and use of man to an immeasurably greater extent than for his destruction? Do I make a more material journey to the bedside of my dying parent or my dying child, when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, than when I travel thither at the rate of six? Rather, in the swift case, does not my agonized heart become over-fraught with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from whom alone can have proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense? What is the materiality of the cable or the wire, compared with the immateriality of the spark? What is the materiality of certain chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or release, compared with the immateriality of their appointed affinities and repulsions, prescribed to them from the instant of their creation to the day of judgment? When did this so-called material age begin? With the invention of the art of printing? Surely it has been a long time about; and which is the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give me light, or that flame of gas that will? No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived by vapid, empty words. The true material age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new grand revelation of nature is granted, because such revelations are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning, and the modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study what was set before him to be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction between the much maligned material sages, and the – I suppose immaterial, but certainly in one sense very much so –sages of the Celestial Empire school. And consider: whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, and finding myself surrounded by such diversified wonders on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the solemn question – should be disposed to put to myself the solemn consideration – Can these things be among those things which might have been disclosed by Divine lips nigh upon two thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could not bear them? And whether this be so or no, I, finding myself so surrounded on every hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased thereby, and with it my intelligent submission of myself as a child of Adam and the dust, before that Shining Source equally of all that is granted and of all that is withheld, who holds in His mighty hands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death? To the students of your industrial classes generally, I have had it in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two words, ‘Courage, Persevere’. This is the motto of a friend and worker. Not because the eyes of Europe are upon them, for I don’t in the least believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon them, for I don’t in the least believe it; not because their doings will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at the street corners, for no such musical performances will take place; not because self-improvement is at all certain to lead to worldly success, but because it is good and right of itself; and because, being so, it does assuredly bring with it, its own resources and its own rewards. I would further commend to them a very wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding, which was given more than half a century ago by the Reverend Sydney Smith – wisest and wittiest of the friends I have lost. He says – and he is speaking, you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of voluntary students – he says: There is a piece of foppery which is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all sciences and excelling in all arts: chemistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very often is, ‘Take the Admirable Crichton for your model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.’ Now – said he – my advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good of my own life, and the life of every eminent man I have ever known. The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and in every pursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association of ideas – such mental qualities, like the qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in Macbeth will not be commanded: but attention, after due term of submissive service, always will. Like certain plants which the poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by anyone, and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth flowers and fruit. – I can most truthfully assure you, by the by, that this eulogium on attention is so far quite disinterested on my part, as that it has not the least reference whatever to the attention with which you have honoured me. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect how often you have probably heard within these walls one of the foremost men, and certainly one of the best speakers, if not the very best, in England. I could not say to myself, when I began just now, in Shakespeare’s line: I will be Bright and shine in gold. But I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, ‘I will be as natural and easy as I possibly can, because my heart has all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men.’ I have said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and add ‘and Birmingham women’. This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if, by rubbing it I could raise the spirit that was obedient to Aladdin’s ring, I heartily assure you that my first instruction to that Genie on the spot should be to place himself at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes. Ladies and Gentlemen, as I hope that it is more than possible that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is out, and shall have the great interest of seeing the faces, and touching the hands, of the successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily, and I most sincerely and fervently say to you, Good night, and God bless you! In reference to the appropriate and excellent remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge my conscience of my political creed, which is contained in two articles, and has no reference to any party or persons. My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in The People governed is, on the whole, illimitable. 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 Birmingham and Midland Institute Inaugural Meeting Description An account of the resource Speech at the Birmingham and Midland Institute Inaugural Meeting (27 September 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 1869-09-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1869-09-27_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Inaugural-Meeting Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Birmingham and Midland Institute Inaugural Meeting' (27 September 1869). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-09-27_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Inaugural-Meeting">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-09-27_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Inaugural-Meeting</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, We often hear of our own country that it is an over-populated one, that it is an over-pauperized one, and that it is an over-taxed one. Now I entertain, especially of late time, the heretical belief that it is an over-talked one, and that there is a deal of public speech-making going about in various directions which might be advantageously dispensed with. If I were free to act upon this conviction, as president for the time being of the great Institution so numerously represented here, I should at once subside into a golden silence, which would be of a highly edifying, because of a very exemplary, character. But I happen to be the Institution’s willing servant: not its imperious master; and it exacts tribute of mere silver or copper speech – not to say brazen – from whomsoever it exalts to my high office. So, some African tribes – not to draw the comparison disrespectfully – some savage African tribes, when they make a king, require him perhaps to achieve an exciting foot-race under the stimulus of considerable prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentally knocked about the head by his privy council, or perhaps to be dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash – at all events, to undergo some purifying ordeal in the presence of his admiring subjects. I must confess that I became rather alarmed when I was duly warned by your constituted authorities that whatever I might happen to say here tonight would be termed an inaugural address on the entrance upon a new term of study by the members of your various classes; for besides that the phrase is something high-sounding for my taste, I avow that I do look forward to that blessed time when every man shall inaugurate his own work for himself, and do it. I believe that we shall then have inaugurated a new era indeed, and one in which the Lord’s Prayer will be a fulfilled prophecy upon this earth. Remembering, however, that you may call anything by any name without in the least changing its nature – bethinking myself that you may, if you be so minded, call a butterfly a buffalo, without advancing a hair’s breadth towards making it one – I became composed in my mind, and resolved to stick to the very homely intention I had previously formed. This was merely to tell you, the members, students, and friends, of the Birmingham and Midland Institute; firstly, what you cannot possibly want to know (this is a very popular oratorical theme); secondly, what your Institution has done; thirdly, what, in the poor opinion of its president for the time being, remains for it to do, and not to do. Now, first, as to what you cannot possibly want to know. You cannot need from me any oratorical declamation concerning the abstract advantages of knowledge, or the beauties of self-improvement. If you had any such requirement, you would not be here. I conceive that you are here, because you have become thoroughly penetrated with such truths, either in your own persons or in the persons of some striving fellow creatures, on whom you have looked with interest and sympathy. I conceive that you are here because you conceive the welfare of a great chiefly adult educational establishment, whose doors stand really open to all sorts and conditions of people, to be inseparable from the best welfare of your great town and its neighbourhood. Nay, if I take a much wider range than that, and say that we all – every one of us – perfectly well know that the benefits of such an establishment must extend far beyond the limits of this midland county fires and smoke, and must comprehend, in some sort, the whole community, I do not strain the truth. It was suggested by Mr. Babbage, in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, that a mere spoken word – a mere syllable thrown into the air – may go on reverberating through illimitable space for ever and for ever, seeing that there is no rim against which it can strike: no boundary at which it can possibly arrive. Similarly it may be said – not as an ingenious speculation, but as a steadfast and absolute fact – that human calculation cannot limit the influence of one atom of wholesome knowledge patiently acquired, modestly possessed, and faithfully used. As astronomers tell us that it is probable that there are in the universe innumerable solar systems besides ours, to each of which myriads of utterly unknown and unseen stars belong, so it is certain that every man, however obscure, however far removed from the general recognition, is one of a group of men impressible for good and impressible for evil, and that it is in the eternal nature of things that he cannot really improve himself without in some degree improving other men. And observe: this is especially the case when he has improved himself in the teeth of adverse circumstances, as in a maturity succeeding to a neglected or an ill-taught youth, in the few daily hours remaining to him after ten or twelve hours of labour, in the few pauses and intervals of a life of toil; for then his fellow creatures and companions have assurance that he can have known no favouring conditions, and that they can do what he has done, in wresting some enlightenment and self-respect from what Lord Lytton finely calls Those twin gaolers of the daring heart, Low birth and iron fortune. As you have proved these truths in your own experience or in your own observation, and as it may be safely assumed that there can be very few persons in Birmingham, of all places under heaven, who would contest the position that the more cultivated the employed the better for the employer, and the more cultivated the employer the better for the employed; therefore, my reference to what you do not want to know shall here cease and determine. Next, with reference to what your Institution has done; on my summary, which shall be as concise and as correct as my information and my remembrance of it may render possible, I desire to lay emphatic stress. Your Institution, sixteen years old, and in which masters and workmen study together, has outgrown the ample edifice in which it receives its 2,500 or 2,600 members and students. It is a most cheering sign of its vigorous vitality that of its industrial students almost one-half are artisans in the receipt of weekly wages. I think I am correct in saying that 400 others are clerks, apprentices, tradesmen, or tradesmen’s sons. I note with particular pleasure the adherence of a goodly number of the gentler sex, without whom no Institution whatever can truly claim to be either a civilizing or a civilized one. The increased attendance at your educational classes is always greatest on the part of the artisans – the class within my experience the least reached in any similar institutions elsewhere, and whose name is the oftenest and most constantly taken in vain. But it is especially reached here, not improbably because it is, as it should be, specially addressed; in the foundation of the industrial department, in the allotment of the direction of the society’s affairs, and in the establishment of what are called its penny classes – a bold and, I am happy to say, a triumphantly successful experiment, which enables the artisan to obtain sound evening instruction in subjects directly bearing on his daily usefulness or on his daily happiness: as arithmetic (elementary and advanced), chemistry, physical geography, and singing: on payment of the astounding low fee of a single penny every time he attends a class. I beg emphatically to say that I look on this as one of the most remarkable schemes ever devised for the educational behoof of the artisan, and if your Institution had done nothing else in all its life, I would take my stand by it on its having done this. Apart, however, from the industrial department, it has its general department, offering all the advantages of a first-class literary Institution. It has its reading rooms, its library, its chemical laboratory, its museum, its art department, its lecture hall, and its long list of lectures on subjects of various and comprehensive interest, delivered by lecturers of the highest qualifications. Very well. But it may be asked, what are the practical results of these appliances? Now, let us suppose a few. Suppose that your Institution should have educated those who are now its teachers. That would be a remarkable fact. Supposing, besides, that it should, so to speak, have educated education, all around it, by sending forth numerous and efficient teachers into many and divers schools. Suppose the young student, reared exclusively in its laboratory, should be presently snapped up for the laboratory of the great and famous hospital. Suppose that in nine years its industrial students should have carried off a round dozen of the much-competed-for prizes awarded by the Society of Arts and the Government departments, besides two local prizes originating in the generosity of a Birmingham man. Suppose that the Town Council, having it in trust to find an artisan well fit to receive the Whitworth prizes, should find him here. Suppose that one of your industrial students should turn his chemical studies to the practical account of extracting gold from waste colour water, and of taking it into custody, in the very act of running away by the thousand pounds worth, down the town drains. Suppose another should perceive in his books, in his studious evenings, what was amiss with his master’s until then inscrutably defective furnace, and should go straight at it – to the great annual saving of that master – and put it right. Suppose another should puzzle out the means, until then quite unknown in England, of making a certain description of coloured glass. Suppose another should qualify himself to vanquish one by one, as they daily arose, all the little difficulties incidental to his calling as an electro-plater, and should be applied to by his companions in the shop ,in all emergencies, under the name of the ‘Encyclopædia’. Suppose a long procession of such cases, and then consider that these are not suppositions at all, but are plain unvarnished facts, culminating in the one special and significant fact that, with a single solitary exception, every one of the Institution’s industrial students who have taken its prizes within ten years, have since climbed to a higher station in his way of life. As to the extent to which the Institution encourages the artisan to think, and so, for instance, to rise superior to the little shackling prejudices perchance existing in his trade when they will not bear the test of inquiry, that is only to be equalled by the extent to which it encourages him to feel. There is a certain tone of modest manliness pervading all the little facts which I have looked through which I found remarkably impressive. The decided objection on the part of the industrial students to attend the classes in their working clothes breathes this tone, as being a graceful and yet at the same time perfectly independent recognition of the place and of one another. And this tone is admirably illustrated in the case of a poor bricklayer, who, being in temporary reverses through illness in his family, had consequently been obliged to part with his best clothes; and who, being therefore missed from the classes in which he had been noticed as a very hard worker, was entreated to attend them in his working clothes. He replied, ‘No, it was not possible. It must not be thought of. It must not come into question for a moment. It might be supposed that he did it to attract attention.’ And the same man being offered by one of the officers a loan of money to enable him to rehabilitate his appearance, positively declined it, on the ground that he came to the Institution to learn, and to know better how to help himself: not otherwise to ask help, or to receive help, from any man. Now, I am justified in calling this the tone of the Institution, because it is no isolated instance, but it is a fair and honourable sample of the spirit of this place, and as such I put it at the conclusion – though last, certainly not least – of my references to what your Institution has indubitably done. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I come at length to what, in the humble opinion of its evanescent officer before you, remains for the Institution to do, and not to do. As Mr. Carlyle has it, towards the closing pages of his grand history of the French Revolution, ‘This with due brevity disposed of, then courage, oh listener, I see land!’ I earnestly hope – and I firmly believe – that your Institution will do henceforth as it has done hitherto; it can hardly do better. I hope and believe that it will know among its members no distinction of person, creed, or party; but that it will conserve its place of assemblage as a high and pure ground, on which all such considerations shall merge into the one universal, heaven-sent aspiration of the human soul to be wiser and better. I hope and believe that it will always be expansive and elastic; for ever seeking to devise new means of enlarging the circle of its members, and of attracting to itself the confidence of still greater and greater numbers, and never evincing any more disposition to stand still than time does, or life does, or the seasons do. And above all this, I hope, and I feel confident from its antecedents, that it will never allow any consideration on the face of the earth to induce it to patronize or to be patronized, for I verily believe that the bestowal and receipt of patronage in such wise has been a curse in England, and that it has done more to prevent really good objects, and to lower really high character, than the utmost efforts of the narrowest antagonism could have effected in twice the time. I have no fear that the walls of the Birmingham and Midland Institute will ever tremble responsive to the croakings of the timid opponents of intellectual progress; but in this connexion generally I cannot forbear from offering a remark which is much upon my mind. It is commonly assumed – much too commonly – that this age is a material age, and that a material age is an irreligious age. I have been pained lately to see this assumption repeated in certain influential quarters for which I have a high respect, and desire to have a higher. I am afraid that by dint of constantly being reiterated and reiterated, without protest, this assumption – which I take leave altogether to deny – may be accepted by the more unthinking part of the public as unquestionably true; just as certain caricaturists and painters professedly making a portrait of some public man, which was not in the least like him, to begin with, have gone on repeating and repeating it, until the public came to believe that it must be exactly like him, simply because it was like itself, and really have at last, in the fullness of time, grown almost to resent upon him their tardy discovery, that he was not like it. I confess, standing here in this responsible situation, that I do not understand this much-used and much-abused phrase, a ‘material age’, I cannot comprehend – if anybody can: which I very much doubt – its logical signification. For instance: has electricity become more material in the mind of any sane, or moderately insane man, woman, or child, because of the discovery that in the good providence of God it was made available for the service and use of man to an immeasurably greater extent than for his destruction? Do I make a more material journey to the bedside of my dying parent or my dying child, when I travel there at the rate of sixty miles an hour, than when I travel thither at the rate of six? Rather, in the swift case, does not my agonized heart become over-fraught with gratitude to that Supreme Beneficence from whom alone can have proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my suspense? What is the materiality of the cable or the wire, compared with the immateriality of the spark? What is the materiality of certain chemical substances that we can weigh or measure, imprison or release, compared with the immateriality of their appointed affinities and repulsions, prescribed to them from the instant of their creation to the day of judgment? When did this so-called material age begin? With the invention of the art of printing? Surely it has been a long time about; and which is the more material object, the farthing tallow candle that will not give me light, or that flame of gas that will? No, ladies and gentlemen, do not let us be discouraged or deceived by vapid, empty words. The true material age is the stupid Chinese age, in which no new grand revelation of nature is granted, because such revelations are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning, and the modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study what was set before him to be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses to my mind the distinction between the much maligned material sages, and the – I suppose immaterial, but certainly in one sense very much so –sages of the Celestial Empire school. And consider: whether it is likely or unlikely, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unreasonable, that I, a being capable of thought, and finding myself surrounded by such diversified wonders on every hand, should sometimes ask myself the solemn question – should be disposed to put to myself the solemn consideration – Can these things be among those things which might have been disclosed by Divine lips nigh upon two thousand years ago, but that the people of that time could not bear them? And whether this be so or no, I, finding myself so surrounded on every hand, is not my moral responsibility tremendously increased thereby, and with it my intelligent submission of myself as a child of Adam and the dust, before that Shining Source equally of all that is granted and of all that is withheld, who holds in His mighty hands the unapproachable mysteries of life and death? To the students of your industrial classes generally, I have had it in my mind, first, to commend the short motto, in two words, ‘Courage, Persevere’. This is the motto of a friend and worker. Not because the eyes of Europe are upon them, for I don’t in the least believe it; nor because the eyes of even England are upon them, for I don’t in the least believe it; not because their doings will be proclaimed with blast of trumpet at the street corners, for no such musical performances will take place; not because self-improvement is at all certain to lead to worldly success, but because it is good and right of itself; and because, being so, it does assuredly bring with it, its own resources and its own rewards. I would further commend to them a very wise and witty piece of advice on the conduct of the understanding, which was given more than half a century ago by the Reverend Sydney Smith – wisest and wittiest of the friends I have lost. He says – and he is speaking, you will please understand, as I speak, to a school of voluntary students – he says: There is a piece of foppery which is to be cautiously guarded against, the foppery of universality, of knowing all sciences and excelling in all arts: chemistry, mathematics, algebra, dancing, history, reasoning, riding, fencing, Low Dutch, High Dutch, and natural philosophy. In short, the modern precept of education very often is, ‘Take the Admirable Crichton for your model, I would have you ignorant of nothing.’ Now – said he – my advice, on the contrary, is to have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order that you may avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. To this I would superadd a little truth, which holds equally good of my own life, and the life of every eminent man I have ever known. The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable quality in every study and in every pursuit is the quality of attention. My own invention or imagination, such as it is, I can most truthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudging attention. Genius, vivacity, quickness of penetration, brilliancy in association of ideas – such mental qualities, like the qualities of the apparition of the externally armed head in Macbeth will not be commanded: but attention, after due term of submissive service, always will. Like certain plants which the poorest peasant may grow in the poorest soil, it can be cultivated by anyone, and it is certain in its own good season to bring forth flowers and fruit. – I can most truthfully assure you, by the by, that this eulogium on attention is so far quite disinterested on my part, as that it has not the least reference whatever to the attention with which you have honoured me. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have done. I cannot but reflect how often you have probably heard within these walls one of the foremost men, and certainly one of the best speakers, if not the very best, in England. I could not say to myself, when I began just now, in Shakespeare’s line: I will be Bright and shine in gold. But I could say to myself, and I did say to myself, ‘I will be as natural and easy as I possibly can, because my heart has all been in my subject, and I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men.’ I have said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and add ‘and Birmingham women’. This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if, by rubbing it I could raise the spirit that was obedient to Aladdin’s ring, I heartily assure you that my first instruction to that Genie on the spot should be to place himself at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes. Ladies and Gentlemen, as I hope that it is more than possible that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again before Christmas is out, and shall have the great interest of seeing the faces, and touching the hands, of the successful competitors in your lists, I will not cast upon that anticipated meeting the terrible foreshadowing of dread which must inevitably result from a second speech. I thank you most heartily, and I most sincerely and fervently say to you, Good night, and God bless you! In reference to the appropriate and excellent remarks of Mr. Dixon, I will now discharge my conscience of my political creed, which is contained in two articles, and has no reference to any party or persons. My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in The People governed is, on the whole, illimitable. 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. ‘I made them a little speech from the lawn, at the end of the games, saying that please God we would do it again next year. They cheered most lustily and dispersed.’ Location The location Kent Venue Where the speech was given Gad's Hill Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Biography Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Life of Charles Dickens Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18691226 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 Sporting Event, Gad’s Hill Description An account of the resource Speech at a Gad's Hill sporting event (26 December 1869). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Forster, John. The Life of Charles Dickens. Ed. J. W. T. Ley. London: Cecil Palmer, 1928. p. 833. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1869-12-26 Type The nature or genre of the resource Speech Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill 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. 'Sporting Event, Gad’s Hill' (26 December 1867). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/</a><a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill">1869-12-26_Speech_Sporting_Event_Gads_Hill</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 Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. He had also, the President announced, taken the Evans prize, of twenty pounds, founded, as they knew, by a manufacturer of Birmingham; and he noticed three circumstances in Mr. Caswell’s career with great pleasure. The first was that he was not yet twenty-one; the second was that in the right of taking the Evans prize he had received the appointment of analytical chemist in the Messrs. Chances’s great works; and the third was that he had done him the honour of affixing to his examination papers the motto he himself had suggested when he was in Birmingham the last time, ‘Courage, Persevere’. Location The location Birmingham Venue Where the speech was given Town 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. 18700106 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, When I last had the honour of presiding over the institution which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a certain super-abundance of public speaking which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require very little self denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly because we have a definite and highly interesting action before us tonight. We have now to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the society’s lists. I say the ‘most successful’, because tonight we should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves besides, in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be certain that he has still won much – very much – and that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who has opposed him in the race. I have applied the word ‘rewards’ to these prizes, and I do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver or gold, but precisely because they do not. They represent what is above all price. what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what is one of the great needs of the human soul – encouraging sympathy. They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, that he does not work there neglected or unbefriended, but that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of this large assembly, and striking to the breast of the recipient that thrill which is inseparable from any great united utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a sensitive spirit can never be forgotten. Now, ladies and gentlemen, with your permission, I will at once proceed to the discharge of the delightful duty you have entrusted to me – the distribution of the prizes and certificates. The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself of the delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if the recipients of these prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform have had the genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments from my hands that I have had in placing them in theirs, they are in a true Christmas temper tonight. I have the painful sense upon me that it is reserved for someone else to enjoy this great satisfaction of mind next time. It would be useless for the few short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another sovereign will very soon sit on my inconstant throne. Tonight I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in the modern annals of royalty, l am politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission to say a closing word. When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my political faith, or perhaps I should better say, want of faith. It imported that I have very little faith in the people who govern us – please to observe ‘people’ there will be with a small ‘p’, but that I have very great confidence in the People whom they govern: please to observe ‘People’ there with a large ‘P’. This was shortly and elliptically stated; and was, with no evil intention I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained. Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one which I do see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the bottom of it, a fiction called ‘The Circumlocution Office’, and perhaps also as the writer of an idle book or two, whose public opinions are not obscurely stated – perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in mind Hamlet’s caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo me. Anyhow I complain of nobody, but simply in order that there may be no more mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will restate my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, a great writer, and a great scholar – whose life, unfortunately for mankind, was cut short – in his History of Civilization in England: They… may talk as they will about the reforms which government has introduced, and the improvements to be expected from legislation. But whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of affairs, will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors of society, instead of its helpers; and that in the extremely few cases in which their measures have turned out well, their success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been, as they always should be, the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes they are bound to give a public and legal sanction. I will only say to you, in acknowledgement of your great cordiality, and that of the three gentlemen who moved, seconded, and put the motion just carried, that you never can have a President more truly interested in you, or more determined, at the conclusion of his term, to remain your steady and faithful friend. With this sincere assurance I beg respectfully, but only officially, to bid you 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 Birmingham and Midland Institute Prize-Giving Description An account of the resource Speeches at the Birmingham and Midland Institute Prize-Giving (6 January 1870). 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 1870-01-06 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1870-01-06_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Prize-Giving 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 at the Birmingham and Midland Institute Prize-Giving' (6 January 1870). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-01-06_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Prize-Giving">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-01-06_Speech_Birmingham-and-Midland-Institute-Prize-Giving</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and Gentlemen, When I last had the honour of presiding over the institution which again brings us together, I took occasion to remark upon a certain super-abundance of public speaking which seems to me to distinguish the present time. It will require very little self denial on my part to practise now what I preached then; firstly, because I said my little say that night; and secondly because we have a definite and highly interesting action before us tonight. We have now to bestow the rewards which have been brilliantly won by the most successful competitors in the society’s lists. I say the ‘most successful’, because tonight we should particularly observe, I think, that there is success in all honest endeavour, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made. To strive at all involves a victory achieved over sloth, inertness, and indifference; and competition for these prizes involves besides, in the vast majority of cases, competition with and mastery asserted over circumstances adverse to the effort made. Therefore, every losing competitor among my hearers may be certain that he has still won much – very much – and that he can well afford to swell the triumph of his rivals who has opposed him in the race. I have applied the word ‘rewards’ to these prizes, and I do so, not because they represent any great intrinsic worth in silver or gold, but precisely because they do not. They represent what is above all price. what can be stated in no arithmetical figures, and what is one of the great needs of the human soul – encouraging sympathy. They are an assurance to every student present or to come in your institution, that he does not work there neglected or unbefriended, but that he is watched, felt for, stimulated, and appreciated. Such an assurance, conveyed in the presence of this large assembly, and striking to the breast of the recipient that thrill which is inseparable from any great united utterance of feeling, is a reward, to my thinking, as purely worthy of the labour as the labour itself is worthy of the reward; and by a sensitive spirit can never be forgotten. Now, ladies and gentlemen, with your permission, I will at once proceed to the discharge of the delightful duty you have entrusted to me – the distribution of the prizes and certificates. The prizes are now all distributed, and I have discharged myself of the delightful task you have entrusted to me; and if the recipients of these prizes and certificates who have come upon this platform have had the genuine pleasure in receiving their acknowledgments from my hands that I have had in placing them in theirs, they are in a true Christmas temper tonight. I have the painful sense upon me that it is reserved for someone else to enjoy this great satisfaction of mind next time. It would be useless for the few short moments longer to disguise the fact that I happen to have drawn King this Twelfth Night, but that another sovereign will very soon sit on my inconstant throne. Tonight I abdicate, or, what is much the same thing in the modern annals of royalty, l am politely dethroned. This melancholy reflection, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to a very small point, personal to myself, upon which I will beg your permission to say a closing word. When I was here last autumn I made, in reference to some remarks of your respected member, Mr. Dixon, a short confession of my political faith, or perhaps I should better say, want of faith. It imported that I have very little faith in the people who govern us – please to observe ‘people’ there will be with a small ‘p’, but that I have very great confidence in the People whom they govern: please to observe ‘People’ there with a large ‘P’. This was shortly and elliptically stated; and was, with no evil intention I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained. Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant fiction, but one which I do see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the bottom of it, a fiction called ‘The Circumlocution Office’, and perhaps also as the writer of an idle book or two, whose public opinions are not obscurely stated – perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in mind Hamlet’s caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo me. Anyhow I complain of nobody, but simply in order that there may be no more mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will restate my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker, a great writer, and a great scholar – whose life, unfortunately for mankind, was cut short – in his History of Civilization in England: They… may talk as they will about the reforms which government has introduced, and the improvements to be expected from legislation. But whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of affairs, will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. They will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors of society, instead of its helpers; and that in the extremely few cases in which their measures have turned out well, their success has been owing to the fact that, contrary to their usual custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and have been, as they always should be, the mere servants of the people, to whose wishes they are bound to give a public and legal sanction. I will only say to you, in acknowledgement of your great cordiality, and that of the three gentlemen who moved, seconded, and put the motion just carried, that you never can have a President more truly interested in you, or more determined, at the conclusion of his term, to remain your steady and faithful friend. With this sincere assurance I beg respectfully, but only officially, to bid you 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 London Venue Where the speech was given St James'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. 18700315 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, It would be worse than idle – for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling – if I were to disguise that I close this episode in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For some fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I have had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your recognition; and, in closely observing your reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction which, perhaps, is given to few men to know. In this task, and in every other which I have ever undertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best, I have been uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon those older associations between us, which date from much further back than these, and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to that art which first brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate 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 After Final Reading Description An account of the resource Short speech after Dickens's final reading at St. James's Hall (15 March 1870). 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 1870-03-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1870-03-15_Speech_Final-Reading 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. 'Final Reading' (15 March 1870). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-03-15_Speech_Final-Reading">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-03-15_Speech_Final-Reading</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Ladies and gentlemen, It would be worse than idle – for it would be hypocritical and unfeeling – if I were to disguise that I close this episode in my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For some fifteen years, in this hall and in many kindred places, I have had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your recognition; and, in closely observing your reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and instruction which, perhaps, is given to few men to know. In this task, and in every other which I have ever undertaken, as a faithful servant of the public, always imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best, I have been uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous sympathy, and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon those older associations between us, which date from much further back than these, and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to that art which first brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from these garish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate 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 London Venue Where the speech was given Freemasons' Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18700405 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. According to the printed order of our proceedings, with such an appendix as the secretary has placed in my hands, a distinguished friend of mine on my right was to have proposed the next toast, the subject of which I will not anticipate. It was associated with another toast; but I have been informed that the subject of that other toast, a corporate body, would have considered themselves ‘snubbed’, – to use an expression that has been forwarded to me confidentially – if they had not been proposed separately. That corporation is the City of London. This is a body represented here by a most distinguished member. For that body we entertain the highest respect, and from it, I for one, have received unbounded hospitality and consideration. I am the more pleased to return this toast, because I have no doubt that this distinguished member of the Corporation unquestionably will now be delighted to tell us what the Corporation is going to do. I have not the slightest doubt that they are going to do something highly creditable to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the whole of the metropolis; and if the secret be not at present closely locked in the blue chamber, I shall be deeply obliged to the gentleman who immediately follows me, if he will let us into it in the same confidence in which I have observed his secret about ‘snubbing’. I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘The Corporation of London’. Ladies and Gentlemen, You have received me with so much cordiality, that I fear you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received by Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had the honour. Furthermore, I beg to assure you, that I never witnessed a Lord Mayor’s Show except from the point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you that I occupy this chair tonight, because, having filled it on several previous occasions for the society in whose behalf we are assembled, and having said everything I could say about it, and being, moreover, the President of the Institution itself, I am placed tonight in the modest position of a host who has not so much to display himself as to call out his guests – perhaps even to try to induce some among them to occupy his place on another occasion. Therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but with a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of speaking in others than to speak myself tonight. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same line. It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman’s calling that no toast we have drunk tonight – and no toast we shall drink tonight – and no toast we might, could, would, or should drink tonight, is separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all possible subjects of human interest which he delivers at our doors every day. Further it may be worthy the consideration of everybody here who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour since we sat down at table, what, in the name of Heaven, should we have talked about, and how on earth could we have possibly got on, if our newsman had only for this one single day forgotten us! Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let us try to form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us remember that his work is very arduous; that it occupies him early and late; that the profits he derives from us, are at the best, very small; that the services he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, his little capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, from anxieties and hazards; and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to all manner of weathers, of tempers, and all manner of difficulties and unreasonable requirements. Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, which originated by chance. The subject was, What was the most absorbing and longest-lived passion in the human breast? What was the passion so powerful that it would almost induce the generous to be mean, the careless to be cautious, the guileless to be deeply designing, the dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and great acuteness, who was one of the company, considerably surprised us by saying, with the greatest confidence, that the passion in question was the passion of getting orders for the play. There had recently been a great and terrible shipwreck, and very few of the surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these, a young man, on making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper office, with his verbal account of how he had seen the ship go down before his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most fearful contention between the powers of fire and water for the destruction of the ship. He had rowed away among the floating dying, and the sinking dead; he had blistered by day, and he had frozen by night, with no shelter and no food. As he told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes about him, and when he had finished it, and it had been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and asked if anything could be done for him. Even then, the master passion was so strong that he faintly replied – would like an order for the play! My friend the editor admitted that this was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of experience he had constantly witnessed an incredible amount of self-prostration and abasement having no other object, and that almost invariably on the part of people who could well afford to pay. This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this faith for some years, till it happened that, one stormy night I was kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of-the-way town that it represented, by a sprightly and vivacious newsman. To him I propounded, as we went along under my umbrella – he being the most excellent company – the old question, What was the one absorbing passion of the human soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it unquestionably was the passion for getting your newspaper in advance of all your fellow creatures; and also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door at exactly the same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles off; and finally, the invincible determination on the part of both men not to believe the time was up when the boy called. Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying this. I conferred with the managing committee; but I have no doubt my friend was perfectly right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an assurance that among a little body of working men there is a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy, which is worth much to all men, or they would herd with wolves; the newsvendors once upon a time established a provident and benevolent institution; and here it is. Under the provident head, certain small annuities are granted to old and hard-working subscribers; under the benevolent head, relief is afforded to temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, I am bound to say the help rendered is very sparing, but if you like it to be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a deal of good. Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly administered; and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for management or patronage. You know upon old authority, that you may believe anything except facts and figures, but you really may believe the statistics that during the last year we have granted about £100 in pensions, and some £70 in temporary relief, and have invested in Government Securities some £400. Touching this matter of investments, it was suggested at the last anniversary dinner, on the high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips, that we might grant more pensions and invest less money. We urge, on the other hand, that we wish our pensions to be certain and unchangeable – which of course they must be if they are always paid out of our Government interest and never out of the capital. However, so amiable is our nature, that we profess our desire to grant more pensions and to invest more money too. The more you give us tonight – again so amiable is our nature – the more we promise to do in both departments. That the newsvendor’s work is greatly increased, and it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you may infer from one fact. Not to mention that we live in railway times, it is stated in Mitchell’s Newspaper Press Directory for the present year, that during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers published in London had more than doubled, while the increase in the number of people among whom they have to be disseminated is almost beyond calculation. I have stated the newsman’s simple case. I leave it in your hands, with the concluding observation that it has had the good fortune, within the last year, of attracting the sympathy and the active support of that eminent man of letters, whom I am proud to call my friend, who now represents the great republic of America at the British Court. Also that it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors and vice-presidents the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution’. 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 Newsvendors' Benevolent and Provident Institution Annual Dinner 1870 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution Annual Dinner (5 April 1870). 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 1870-04-05 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1870-04-05_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-and-Provident-Institution-Annual-Dinner 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 Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution Annual Dinner' (5 April 1870). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-04-05_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-and-Provident-Institution-Annual-Dinner">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-04-05_Speech_Newsvendors-Benevolent-and-Provident-Institution-Annual-Dinner</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. According to the printed order of our proceedings, with such an appendix as the secretary has placed in my hands, a distinguished friend of mine on my right was to have proposed the next toast, the subject of which I will not anticipate. It was associated with another toast; but I have been informed that the subject of that other toast, a corporate body, would have considered themselves ‘snubbed’, – to use an expression that has been forwarded to me confidentially – if they had not been proposed separately. That corporation is the City of London. This is a body represented here by a most distinguished member. For that body we entertain the highest respect, and from it, I for one, have received unbounded hospitality and consideration. I am the more pleased to return this toast, because I have no doubt that this distinguished member of the Corporation unquestionably will now be delighted to tell us what the Corporation is going to do. I have not the slightest doubt that they are going to do something highly creditable to themselves, and something highly serviceable to the whole of the metropolis; and if the secret be not at present closely locked in the blue chamber, I shall be deeply obliged to the gentleman who immediately follows me, if he will let us into it in the same confidence in which I have observed his secret about ‘snubbing’. I beg to propose to you to drink, ‘The Corporation of London’. Ladies and Gentlemen, You have received me with so much cordiality, that I fear you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received by Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had the honour. Furthermore, I beg to assure you, that I never witnessed a Lord Mayor’s Show except from the point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon the pavement. Now, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you that I occupy this chair tonight, because, having filled it on several previous occasions for the society in whose behalf we are assembled, and having said everything I could say about it, and being, moreover, the President of the Institution itself, I am placed tonight in the modest position of a host who has not so much to display himself as to call out his guests – perhaps even to try to induce some among them to occupy his place on another occasion. Therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but with a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of speaking in others than to speak myself tonight. Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same line.  It is an appropriate instance of the universality of the newsman’s calling that no toast we have drunk tonight – and no toast we shall drink tonight – and no toast we might, could, would, or should drink tonight, is separable for a moment from that great inclusion of all possible subjects of human interest which he delivers at our doors every day. Further it may be worthy the consideration of everybody here who has talked cheerfully to his or her neighbour since we sat down at table, what, in the name of Heaven, should we have talked about, and how on earth could we have possibly got on, if our newsman had only for this one single day forgotten us! Now, ladies and gentlemen, as our newsman is not by any means in the habit of forgetting us, let us try to form a little habit of not forgetting our newsman. Let us remember that his work is very arduous; that it occupies him early and late; that the profits he derives from us, are at the best, very small; that the services he renders to us are very great; that if he be a master, his little capital is exposed to all sorts of mischances, from anxieties and hazards; and if he be a journeyman, he himself is exposed to all manner of weathers, of tempers, and all manner of difficulties and unreasonable requirements. Let me illustrate this. I was once present at a social discussion, which originated by chance. The subject was, What was the most absorbing and longest-lived passion in the human breast? What was the passion so powerful that it would almost induce the generous to be mean, the careless to be cautious, the guileless to be deeply designing, the dove to emulate the serpent? A daily editor of vast experience and great acuteness, who was one of the company, considerably surprised us by saying, with the greatest confidence, that the passion in question was the passion of getting orders for the play. There had recently been a great and terrible shipwreck, and very few of the surviving sailors had escaped in an open boat. One of these, a young man, on making land came straight to London, and straight to the newspaper office, with his verbal account of how he had seen the ship go down before his eyes. That young man had witnessed the most fearful contention between the powers of fire and water for the destruction of the ship. He had rowed away among the floating dying, and the sinking dead; he had blistered by day, and he had frozen by night, with no shelter and no food. As he told his dismal tale, he rolled his haggard eyes about him, and when he had finished it, and it had been noted down from his lips, he was cheered and refreshed, and asked if anything could be done for him. Even then, the master passion was so strong that he faintly replied – would like an order for the play! My friend the editor admitted that this was rather a strong case; but he said that during his many years of experience he had constantly witnessed an incredible amount of self-prostration and abasement having no other object, and that almost invariably on the part of people who could well afford to pay. This made a great impression on my mind, and I really lived in this faith for some years, till it happened that, one stormy night I was kindly escorted from a bleak railway station to the little out-of-the-way town that it represented, by a sprightly and vivacious newsman. To him I propounded, as we went along under my umbrella – he being the most excellent company – the old question, What was the one absorbing passion of the human soul? He replied, without the slightest hesitation, that it unquestionably was the passion for getting your newspaper in advance of all your fellow creatures; and also, if you only hired it, to get it delivered at your own door at exactly the same time as another man who hired the same copy four miles off; and finally, the invincible determination on the part of both men not to believe the time was up when the boy called. Ladies and gentlemen, I have not had an opportunity of verifying this. I conferred with the managing committee; but I have no doubt my friend was perfectly right. Well, as a sort of beacon in a sufficiently dark life, and as an assurance that among a little body of working men there is a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy, which is worth much to all men, or they would herd with wolves; the newsvendors once upon a time established a provident and benevolent institution; and here it is. Under the provident head, certain small annuities are granted to old and hard-working subscribers; under the benevolent head, relief is afforded to temporary and proved distress. Under both heads, I am bound to say the help rendered is very sparing, but if you like it to be handsomer you have it in your power to make it so. Such as it is, it is most gratefully received, and does a deal of good. Such as it is, it is most discreetly and feelingly administered; and it is encumbered with no wasteful charges for management or patronage. You know upon old authority, that you may believe anything except facts and figures, but you really may believe the statistics that during the last year we have granted about £100 in pensions, and some £70 in temporary relief, and have invested in Government Securities some £400. Touching this matter of investments, it was suggested at the last anniversary dinner, on the high and kind authority of Sir Benjamin Phillips, that we might grant more pensions and invest less money. We urge, on the other hand, that we wish our pensions to be certain and unchangeable – which of course they must be if they are always paid out of our Government interest and never out of the capital. However, so amiable is our nature, that we profess our desire to grant more pensions and to invest more money too. The more you give us tonight – again so amiable is our nature – the more we promise to do in both departments. That the newsvendor’s work is greatly increased, and it is far more wearing and tearing than it used to be, you may infer from one fact. Not to mention that we live in railway times, it is stated in Mitchell’s Newspaper Press Directory for the present year, that during the last quarter of a century the number of newspapers published in London had more than doubled, while the increase in the number of people among whom they have to be disseminated is almost beyond calculation. I have stated the newsman’s simple case. I leave it in your hands, with the concluding observation that it has had the good fortune, within the last year, of attracting the sympathy and the active support of that eminent man of letters, whom I am proud to call my friend, who now represents the great republic of America at the British Court. Also that it has the honour of enrolling upon its list of donors and vice-presidents the great name of Longfellow. I beg to propose to you to drink ‘Prosperity to the Newsvendors’ Benevolent and Provident Institution’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given Burlington House 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. 18700430 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. President, Your Royal Highness, My Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great honour of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of the brotherhood of Literature, present and absent, not forgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy return to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits – or lately did sit – within a few chairs of you, on your left hand. I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the sisterhood of Literature also, although that ‘better half of human nature’ to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful tribute is unworthily represented here, in the present state of its rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, man. All the Arts and many of the Sciences bear witness that women, even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great distinction and can win quite as lofty names as man. Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soon they may ‘push us from our stools’ at these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place of mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressing another better half of human nature sitting in the president’s chair. The literary visitors of the Royal Academy tonight desire me to congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise of a brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons of great men – historians, philosophers, poets, and novelists – vividly illustrated around them here. And they hope they may modestly claim to have rendered some little assistance towards the production of many of the pictures in this magnificent gallery. For without the patient labours of some among them unhistoric history might have long survived in this place, and but for the researches and wanderings of others among them, the most preposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and the absurdest superstitions, manners, and customs, might have usurped the place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir Francis Grant, what unlike portraits you yourself might have painted if you had been left, with your sitters, to idle pens, unchecked restless rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence. I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme to which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the President referred with the eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side one by one that I already begin to feel like the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities around him were the pictures which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream. For many years, I was one of the two most intimate friends and most constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility of mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, ‘in wit a man, simplicity a child’, no Artist, of whatever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the Art-Goddess whom he worshipped. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Royal Academy Banquet 1870 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Royal Academy Banquet (30 April 1870). 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 1870-04-30 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1870-04-30_Speech_Royal-Academy-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 Royal Academy Banquet' (30 April 1870). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-04-30_Speech_Royal-Academy-Banquet">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1870-04-30_Speech_Royal-Academy-Banquet</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Mr. President, Your Royal Highness, My Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to acknowledge the toast with which you have done me the great honour of associating my name. I beg to acknowledge it on behalf of the brotherhood of Literature, present and absent, not forgetting an illustrious wanderer from the fold, whose tardy return to it we all hail with delight, and who now sits – or lately did sit – within a few chairs of you, on your left hand. I hope I may also claim to acknowledge the toast on behalf of the sisterhood of Literature also, although that ‘better half of human nature’ to which Mr. Gladstone rendered his graceful tribute is unworthily represented here, in the present state of its rights and wrongs, by the devouring monster, man. All the Arts and many of the Sciences bear witness that women, even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great distinction and can win quite as lofty names as man. Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soon they may ‘push us from our stools’ at these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place of mine, may eloquently depreciate mankind, addressing another better half of human nature sitting in the president’s chair. The literary visitors of the Royal Academy tonight desire me to congratulate their hosts on a very interesting exhibition, in which risen excellence supremely asserts itself, and from which promise of a brilliant succession in time to come is not wanting. They naturally see with especial interest the writings and persons of great men – historians, philosophers, poets, and novelists – vividly illustrated around them here. And they hope they may modestly claim to have rendered some little assistance towards the production of many of the pictures in this magnificent gallery. For without the patient labours of some among them unhistoric history might have long survived in this place, and but for the researches and wanderings of others among them, the most preposterous countries, the most impossible peoples, and the absurdest superstitions, manners, and customs, might have usurped the place of truth upon these walls. Nay, there is no knowing, Sir Francis Grant, what unlike portraits you yourself might have painted if you had been left, with your sitters, to idle pens, unchecked restless rumours, and undenounced lying malevolence. I cannot forbear, before I resume my seat, adverting to a sad theme to which his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales made allusion, and to which the President referred with the eloquence of genuine feeling. Since I first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it has been my constant fortune to number amongst my nearest and dearest friends members of the Royal Academy who have been its grace and pride. They have so dropped from my side one by one that I already begin to feel like the Spanish monk of whom Wilkie tells, who had grown to believe that the only realities around him were the pictures which he loved, and that all the moving life he saw, or ever had seen, was a shadow and a dream. For many years, I was one of the two most intimate friends and most constant companions of the late Mr. Maclise. Of his genius in his chosen art I will venture to say nothing here, but of his prodigious fertility of mind and wonderful wealth of intellect, I may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. The gentlest and most modest of men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants, and the frankest and largest-hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, ‘in wit a man, simplicity a child’, no Artist, of whatever denomination, I make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the Art-Goddess whom he worshipped. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/Manchester_Town_Hall_[founded_1877]/skynews-manchester-town-hall_5471753.jpg 708dfca5448f9e44ce8406848ab7aeeb Place Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given Manchester Town Hall Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Manchester Town Hall (founded 1877) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1877 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context place-manchester-town-hall manchester https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/John_Rylands_Research_Institute_and_Library_[founded_1900]/rylandspostcard.jpg 37c8cd3c27ee1390a53cde256846cbcf Place Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given John Rylands Research Institute and Library 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 John Rylands Research Institute and Library (founded 1900) Type The nature or genre of the resource Place Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context place-john-rylands-library Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1900 manchester https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/Manchester_Central_Library_[founded_1934]/5447276387_e6acb034a7.jpg 034e377dec8c22f01512b5e1e81b3566 Place Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given Manchester Central Library Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Manchester Central Library (founded 1934) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1934 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context place-manchester-central-library manchester https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/3_Elm_Terrace_Ardwick_[home_of_Frances_Dickens]/3_Elm_Terrace.jpeg 266dac5add732bf86839adf07cdb0ade Place Location The location Manchester Venue Where the speech was given 3 Elm Terrace, Ardwick 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 3 Elm Terrace, Ardwick (home of Frances Dickens) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context place-3-elm-terrace manchester