Chapter 48

NIAGARA AND MONTREAL.

1842.

Last Two Letters--Dickens vanquished--Obstacles to Copyright--Two described--Value of Literary Popularity--Substitute for Literature--The Secretary described--His Paintings--The Lion and ---- --Toryism of Toronto--Canadian Attentions--Proposed Theatricals--Last Letter--The Private Play--Stage Manager's Report--The Lady Performers--Bill of the Performance--A Touch of Crummles--HOME.

MY friend was better than his word, and two more letters reached me before his return. The opening of the first was written from Niagara on the 3d, and its close from Montreal on the 12th, of May; from which latter city also, on the 26th of that month, the last of all was written.

Much of the first of these letters had reference to the international copyright agitation, and gave strong expression to the indignation awakened in him (nor less in some of the best men of America) by the adoption, at a public meeting in Boston itself, of a memorial against any change of the law, in the course of which it was stated that, if English authors were invested with any control over the republication of their own books, it would be no longer possible for American editors to alter and adapt them to the American taste. This deliberate declaration, however, unsparing as Dickens's anger at it was, in effect vanquished him. He saw the hopelessness of pursuing further any present effort to bring about the change desired; and he took the determination not only to drop any allusion to it in his proposed book, but to try what effect might be produced, when he should again be in England, by a league of English authors to suspend further intercourse with American publishers while the law should remain as it is. On his return he made accordingly a public appeal to this effect, stating his own intention for the future to forego all profit derivable from the authorized transmission of early proofs across the Atlantic; but his hopes in this particular also were doomed to disappointment. I now leave the subject, quoting only from his present letter the general remarks with which it is dismissed by himself.

"NIAGARA FALLS, "_Tuesday, Third May, 1842._

"I'll tell you what the two obstacles to the passing of an international copyright law with England are: firstly, the national love of 'doing' a man in any bargain or matter of business; secondly, the national vanity. Both these characteristics prevail to an extent which no stranger can possibly estimate.

"With regard to the first, I seriously believe that it is an essential part of the pleasure derived from the perusal of a popular English book, that the author gets nothing for it. It is so dar-nation 'cute--so knowing in Jonathan to get his reading on those terms. He has the Englishman so regularly on the hip that his eye twinkles with slyness, cunning, and delight; and he chuckles over the humor of the page with an appreciation of it quite inconsistent with, and apart from, its honest purchase. The raven hasn't more joy in eating a stolen piece of meat, than the American has in reading the English book which he gets for nothing.

"With regard to the second, it reconciles that better and more elevated class who are above this sort of satisfaction, with surprising ease. The man's read in America! The Americans like him! They are glad to see him when he comes here! They flock about him, and tell him that they are grateful to him for spirits in sickness; for many hours of delight in health; for a hundred fanciful associations which are constantly interchanged between themselves and their wives and children at home! It is nothing that all this takes place in countries where he is _paid_; it is nothing that he has won fame for himself elsewhere, and profit too. The Americans read him; the free, enlightened, independent Americans; and what more _would_ he have? Here's reward enough for any man. The national vanity swallows up all other countries on the face of the earth, and leaves but this above the ocean. Now, mark what the real value of this American reading is. Find me in the whole range of literature one single solitary English book which becomes popular with them before, by going through the ordeal at home and becoming popular there, it has forced itself on their attention--and I am content that the law should remain as it is, forever and a day. I must make one exception. There _are_ some mawkish tales of fashionable life before which crowds fall down as they were gilded calves, which have been snugly enshrined in circulating libraries at home, from the date of their publication.

"As to telling them they will have no literature of their own, the universal answer (out of Boston) is, 'We don't want one. Why should we pay for one when we can get it for nothing? Our people don't think of poetry, sir. Dollars, banks, and cotton are _our_ books, sir.' And they certainly are in one sense; for a lower average of general information than exists in this country on all other topics, it would be very hard to find. So much, at present, for international copyright."

The same letter kept the promise made in its predecessor that one or two more sketches of character should be sent: "One of the most amusing phrases in use all through the country, for its constant repetition, and adaptation to every emergency, is 'Yes, Sir.' Let me give you a specimen." (The specimen was the dialogue, in the _Notes_, of straw-hat and brown-hat, during the stage-coach ride to Sandusky.) "I am not joking, upon my word. This is exactly the dialogue. Nothing else occurring to me at this moment, let me give you the secretary's portrait. Shall I?

"He is of a sentimental turn--strongly sentimental; and tells Anne as June approaches that he hopes 'we shall sometimes think of him' in our own country. He wears a cloak, like Hamlet; and a very tall, big, limp, dusty black hat, which he exchanges on long journeys for a cap like Harlequin's. . . . He sings; and in some of our quarters, when his bedroom has been near ours, we have heard him grunting bass notes through the keyhole of his door, to attract our attention. His desire that I should formally ask him to sing, and his devices to make me do so, are irresistibly absurd. There was a piano in our room at Hartford (you recollect our being there, early in February?)--and he asked me one night, when we were alone, if 'Mrs. D.' played. 'Yes, Mr. Q.' 'Oh, indeed, Sir! _I_ sing: so whenever you want _a little soothing_--' You may imagine how hastily I left the room, on some false pretense, without hearing more.

"He paints. . . . An enormous box of oil-colors is the main part of his luggage: and with these he blazes away, in his own room, for hours together. Anne got hold of some big-headed, pot-bellied sketches he made of the passengers on board the canal-boat (including me in my fur coat), the recollection of which brings the tears into my eyes at this minute. He painted the Falls, at Niagara, superbly; and is supposed now to be engaged on a full-length representation of me: waiters having reported that chamber-maids have said that there is a picture in his room which has a great deal of hair. One girl opined that it was 'the beginning of the King's Arms;' but I am pretty sure that the Lion is myself. . . .

"Sometimes, but not often, he commences a conversation. That usually occurs when we are walking the deck after dark; or when we are alone together in a coach. It is his practice at such times to relate the most notorious and patriarchal Joe Miller, as something that occurred in his own family. When traveling by coach, he is particularly fond of imitating cows and pigs; and nearly challenged a fellow-passenger the other day, who had been moved by the display of this accomplishment into telling him that he was 'a Perfect Calf.' He thinks it an indispensable act of politeness and attention to inquire constantly whether we're not sleepy, or, to use his own words, whether we don't 'suffer for sleep.' If we have taken a long nap of fourteen hours or so, after a long journey, he is sure to meet me at the bedroom door when I turn out in the morning, with this inquiry. But, apart from the amusement he gives us, I could not by possibility have lighted on any one who would have suited my purpose so well. I have raised his ten dollars per month to twenty; and mean to make it up for six months."

The conclusion of this letter was dated from "Montreal, Thursday, twelfth May," and was little more than an eager yearning for home: "This will be a very short and stupid letter, my dear friend; for the post leaves here much earlier than I expected, and all my grand designs for being unusually brilliant fall to the ground. I will write you _one line_ by the next Cunard boat,--reserving all else until our happy and long long looked-for meeting.

"We have been to Toronto and Kingston; experiencing attentions at each which I should have difficulty in describing. The wild and rabid toryism of Toronto is, I speak seriously, _appalling_. English kindness is very different from American. People send their horses and carriages for your use, but they don't exact as payment the right of being always under your nose. We had no less than _five_ carriages at Kingston waiting our pleasure at one time; not to mention the commodore's barge and crew, and a beautiful government steamer. We dined with Sir Charles Bagot last Sunday. Lord Mulgrave was to have met us yesterday at Lachine; but, as he was wind-bound in his yacht and couldn't get in, Sir Richard Jackson sent his drag four-in-hand, with two other young fellows who are also his aides, and in we came in grand style.

"The Theatricals (I think I told you[62] I had been invited to play with the officers of the Coldstream Guards here) are _A Roland for an Oliver_; _Two o'Clock in the Morning_; and either the _Young Widow_, or _Deaf as a Post_. Ladies (unprofessional) are going to play, for the first time. I wrote to Mitchell at New York for a wig for Mr. Snobbington, which has arrived, and is brilliant. If they had done _Love, Law, and Physick_, as at first proposed, I was already 'up' in Flexible, having played it of old, before my authorship days; but if it should be Splash in the _Young Widow_, you will have to do me the favor to imagine me in a smart livery-coat, shiny black hat and cockade, white knee-cords, white top-boots, blue stock, small whip, red cheeks, and dark eyebrows. Conceive Topping's state of mind if I bring this dress home and put it on unexpectedly! . . . God bless you, dear friend. I can say nothing about the seventh, the day on which we sail. It is impossible. Words cannot express what we feel, now that the time is so near. . . ."

His last letter, dated from "Peasco's Hotel, Montreal, Canada, twenty-sixth of May," described the private theatricals, and inclosed me a bill of the play.

"This, like my last, will be a stupid letter, because both Kate and I are thrown into such a state of excitement by the near approach of the seventh of June that we can do nothing, and think of nothing.

"The play came off last night. The audience, between five and six hundred strong, were invited as to a party; a regular table with refreshments being spread in the lobby and saloon. We had the band of the twenty-third (one of the finest in the service) in the orchestra, the theatre was lighted with gas, the scenery was excellent, and the properties were all brought from private houses. Sir Charles Bagot, Sir Richard Jackson, and their staffs were present; and as the military portion of the audience were all in full uniform, it was really a splendid scene.

"We 'went' also splendidly; though with nothing very remarkable in the acting way. We had for Sir Mark Chase a genuine odd fish, with plenty of humor; but our Tristram Sappy was not up to the marvelous reputation he has somehow or other acquired here. I am not however, let me tell you, placarded as stage-manager for nothing. Everybody was told they would have to submit to the most iron despotism; and didn't I come Macready over them? Oh, no. By no means. Certainly not. The pains I have taken with them, and the perspiration I have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in amount anything you can imagine. I had regular plots of the scenery made out, and lists of the properties wanted; and had them nailed up by the prompter's chair. Every letter that was to be delivered, was written; every piece of money that had to be given, provided; and not a single thing lost sight of. I prompted, myself, when I was not on; when I was, I made the regular prompter of the theatre my deputy; and I never saw anything so perfectly touch and go, as the first two pieces. The bedroom scene in the interlude was as well furnished as Vestris had it; with a 'practicable' fireplace blazing away like mad, and everything in a concatenation accordingly. I really do believe that I was very funny: at least I know that I laughed heartily at myself, and made the part a character, such as you and I know very well: a mixture of T----, Harley, Yates, Keeley, and Jerry Sneak. It went with a roar, all through; and, as I am closing this, they have told me I was so well made up that Sir Charles Bagot, who sat in the stage-box, had no idea who played Mr. Snobbington, until the piece was over.

* * * * *

=COMMITTEE.=

* * * * *

Mrs. TORRENS. W. C. ERMATINGER, Esq. Mrs. PERRY. Captain TORRENS. THE EARL OF MULGRAVE.

* * * * *

STAGE MANAGER--MR. CHARLES DICKENS.

* * * * *

QUEEN'S THEATRE, MONTREAL

* * * * *

ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 25TH, 1842, WILL BE PERFORMED,

=ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER.=

* * * * *

MRS. SELBORNE. [Handwritten: Mrs. Torrens] MARIA DARLINGTON. [Handwritten: Miss Griffin] MRS. FIXTURE. [Handwritten: Miss Ermatinger.]

MR. SELBORNE. [Handwritten: Lord Mulgrave.] ALFRED HIGHFLYER. [Handwritten: Mr. Charles Dickens] SIR MARK CHASE. [Handwritten: Honourable Mr. Methuen] FIXTURE. [Handwritten: Captain Willoughby.] GAMEKEEPER. [Handwritten: Captain Granville]

* * * * *

AFTER WHICH, AN INTERLUDE IN ONE SCENE, (FROM THE FRENCH,) CALLED

=Past Two o'Clock in the Morning.=

* * * * *

THE STRANGER. [Handwritten: Captain Granville] MR. SNOBBINGTON. [Handwritten: Mr. Charles Dickens]

* * * * *

TO CONCLUDE WITH THE FARCE, IN ONE ACT, ENTITLED

=DEAF AS A POST.=

* * * * *

MRS. PLUMPLEY. [Handwritten: Mrs. Torrens] AMY TEMPLETON. [Handwritten: Mrs. Charles Dickens!!!!!!!!] SOPHY WALTON. [Handwritten: Mrs. Perry.] SALLY MAGGS. [Handwritten: Miss Griffin]

CAPTAIN TEMPLETON. [Handwritten: Captain Torrens] MR. WALTON. [Handwritten: Captain Willoughby.] TRISTRAM SAPPY. [Handwritten: Doctor Griffin] CRUPPER. [Handwritten: Lord Mulgrave] GALLOP. [Handwritten: Mr. Charles Dickens.]

MONTREAL, May 24, 1842. GAZETTE OFFICE.

"But only think of Kate playing! and playing devilish well, I assure you! All the ladies were capital, and we had no wait or hitch for an instant. You may suppose this, when I tell you that we began at eight, and had the curtain down at eleven. It is their custom here, to prevent heart-burnings in a very heart-burning town, whenever they have played in private, to repeat the performances in public. So, on Saturday (substituting, of course, real actresses for the ladies), we repeat the two first pieces to a paying audience, for the manager's benefit. . . .

"I send you a bill, to which I have appended a key.

"I have not told you half enough. But I promise you I shall make you shake your sides about this play. Wasn't it worthy of Crummles that when Lord Mulgrave and I went out to the door to receive the Governor-general, the regular prompter followed us in agony with four tall candlesticks with wax candles in them, and besought us with a bleeding heart to carry two apiece, in accordance with all the precedents? . . .

* * * * *

"I have hardly spoken of our letters, which reached us yesterday, shortly before the play began. A hundred thousand thanks for your delightful mainsail of that gallant little packet. I read it again and again; and had it all over again at breakfast-time this morning. I heard also, by the same ship, from Talfourd, Miss Coutts, Brougham, Rogers, and others. A delicious letter from Mac too, as good as his painting, I swear. Give my hearty love to him. . . . God bless you, my dear friend. As the time draws nearer, we get FEVERED with anxiety for home. . . . Kiss our darlings for us. We shall soon meet, please God, and be happier and merrier than ever we were, in all our lives. . . . Oh, home--home--home--home--home--home--HOME!!!!!!!!!!!"

=END OF VOL. I.=

FOOTNOTES:

[62] See _ante_, p. 303.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page viii, "recoltions" changed to "recollections" (Another schoolfellow's recollections)

Page ix, extraneous page number removed Original text read:

Writing _Pickwick_, Nos. 14 127 and 15 127

Page 59, "t" changed to "it" (it as early as)

Page 117, "reisssue" changed to "reissue" (Scheme to reissue)

Page 224, "s" changed to "is" (there is little further)

Page 224, "hab" changed to "habit" (his invariable habit)

Page 242, "axing" changed to "taxing" (taxing ingenuity to)

Page 242, "f" chagned to "of" (of sheer insanity)

Page 286, word "I" inserted into text. (I have heard of)

To retain the integrity of the original text, varied hyphenations, capitalizations, and, at times, spellings were retained.

For example:

Varied hyphenation and capitalization of Devonshire Terrace was retained. Also fac-simile and facsimile. Varied spelling of A'Beckett/A'Becket was retained.

*****

Transcriber's Note:

For the reader: Italic text is surrounded by _underscores_, bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and underlined text is surrounded by ~tildes~. Two breves above the letter e are indicated by [)e] in the text.

THE LIFE

OF

THE LIFE

OF

CHARLES DICKENS

BY

JOHN FORSTER.

VOL. II.

1842-1852.

CORRECTIONS MADE IN THE LATER EDITIONS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

* * * * *

A NOTICE written under date of the 23rd December, 1871, appeared with the Tenth Edition. "Such has been the rapidity of the demand for successive impressions of this book, that I have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages 31, 87, and 97 three errors of statement made in the former editions; and some few other mistakes, not in themselves important, at pages 96, 101, and 102. I take the opportunity of adding, that the mention at p. 83 is not an allusion to the well-known 'Penny' and 'Saturday' magazines, but to weekly periodicals of some years' earlier date resembling them in form. One of them, I have since found from a later mention by Dickens himself, was presumably of a less wholesome and instructive character. 'I used,' he says, 'when I was at school, to take in the _Terrific Register_, making myself unspeakably miserable, and frightening my very wits out of my head, for the small charge of a penny weekly; which, considering that there was an illustration to every number in which there was always a pool of blood, and at least one body, was cheap.' An obliging correspondent writes to me upon my reference to the Fox-under-the-hill, at p. 62: 'Will you permit me to say, that the house, shut up and almost ruinous, is still to be found at the bottom of a curious and most precipitous court, the entrance of which is just past Salisbury-street. . . . It was once, I think, the approach to the halfpenny boats. The house is now shut out from the water-side by the Embankment.'" I proceed to state in detail what the changes thus referred to were.

The passage about James Lamert, beginning at the thirteenth line of p. 31, now stands: "His chief ally and encourager in these displays was a youth of some ability, much older than himself, named James Lamert, stepson to his mother's sister and therefore a sort of cousin, who was his great patron and friend in his childish days. Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles Barrow, himself a lieutenant in the navy, had for her first husband a commander in the navy called Allen; on whose death by drowning at Rio Janeiro she had joined her sister, the navy-pay clerk's wife, at Chatham; in which place she subsequently took for her second husband Doctor Lamert, an army surgeon, whose son James, even after he had been sent to Sandhurst for his education, continued still to visit Chatham from time to time. He had a turn for private theatricals; and as his father's quarters were in the ordnance-hospital there, a great rambling place otherwise at that time almost uninhabited, he had plenty of room in which to get up his entertainments." Two other corrections were consequent on this change. At the 21st line of page 38, for "the elder cousin" read "the cousin by marriage;" and at the 31st line of p. 49, "cousin by his mother's side" should be "cousin by his aunt's marriage."

At the 15th line of the 41st page, "his bachelor-uncle, fellow-clerk," &c. should be "the uncle who was at this time fellow-clerk," &c. At the 11th line of page 54, "Charles-court" should be "Clare-court." The allusion to one of his favourite localities at the 23d line of page 62 should stand thus: "a little public-house by the water-side called the Fox-under-the-hill, approached by an underground passage which we once missed in looking for it together."

The passage at p. 87, having reference to an early friend who had been with him, as I supposed, at his first school, should run thus: "In this however I have since discovered my own mistake: the truth being that it was this gentleman's connection, not with the Wellington-academy, but with a school kept by Mr. Dawson in Hunter-street, Brunswick-square, where the brothers of Dickens were subsequently placed, which led to their early knowledge of each other. I fancy that they were together also, for a short time, at Mr. Molloy's in New-square, Lincoln's-inn; but, whether or not this was so, Dickens certainly had not quitted school many months before his father had made sufficient interest with an attorney of Gray's-inn, Mr. Edward Blackmore, to obtain him regular employment in his office." There is subsequent allusion to the same gentleman (at p. 182) as his "school-companion at Mr. Dawson's in Henrietta-street," which ought to stand as "having known him when himself a law-clerk in Lincoln's-inn."

At p. 96 I had stated that Mr. John Dickens reported for the _Morning Chronicle_; and at p. 101 that Mr. Thomas Beard reported for the _Morning Herald_; whereas Mr. Dickens, though in the gallery for other papers, did not report for the _Chronicle_, and Mr. Beard did report for that journal; and where (at p. 102) Dickens was spoken of as associated with Mr. Beard in a reporting party which represented respectively the _Chronicle_ and _Herald_, the passage ought simply to have described him as "connected with a reporting party, being Lord John Russell's Devonshire contest above-named, and his associate chief being Mr. Beard, entrusted with command for the _Chronicle_ in this particular express."

At p. 97 I had made a mistake about his "first published piece of writing," in too hastily assuming that he had himself forgotten what the particular piece was. It struck an intelligent and kind correspondent as very unlikely that Dickens should have fallen into error on such a point; and, making personal search for himself (as I ought to have done), discovered that what I supposed to be another piece was merely the same under another title. The description of his first printed sketch should therefore be "(Mr. Minns and his Cousin, as he afterwards entitled it, but which appeared in the magazine as A Dinner at Poplar Walk)." There is another mistake at p. 159, of "bandy-legged" instead of "bulky-legged" and, at p. 177, of "fresh fields" for "fresh woods."

Those several corrections were made in the Tenth Edition. To the Eleventh these words were prefixed (under date of the 23rd of January, 1872): "Since the above mentioned edition went to press, a published letter has rendered necessary a brief additional note to the remarks made at pp. 155-6." The remark occurs in my notice of the silly story of Mr. Cruikshank having originated _Oliver Twist_, and, with the note referred to, now stands in the form subjoined. "Whether all Sir Benjamin's laurels however should fall to the person by whom the tale is told,* or whether any part belongs to the authority alleged for it, is unfortunately not quite clear. There would hardly have been a doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other side of the Atlantic; but it has been reproduced and widely circulated on this side also; and the distinguished artist whom it calumniates by attributing the invention to him has been left undefended from its slander. Dickens's letter spares me the necessity of characterizing, by the only word which would have been applicable to it, a tale of such incredible and monstrous absurdity as that one of the masterpieces of its author's genius had been merely an illustration of etchings by Mr. Cruikshank!" Note to the words "person by whom the tale is told:" "*This question has been partly solved, since my last edition, by Mr. Cruikshank's announcement in the _Times_, that, though Dr. Mackenzie had 'confused some circumstances with respect to Mr. Dickens looking over some drawings and sketches,' the substance of his information as to who it was that originated _Oliver Twist_, and all its characters, had been derived from Mr. Cruikshank himself. The worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has not Dr. Mackenzie for its author; and Mr. Cruikshank is to be congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as Mr. Dickens lived."

In the Twelfth Edition I mentioned, in the note at p. 149, a little work of which all notice had been previously omitted; and the close of that note now runs: "He had before written for them, without his name, _Sunday under Three Heads_; and he added subsequently a volume of _Young Couples_." At p. 157, "parish abuses" is corrected in the same edition to "parish practices;" and at p. 173, "in his later works" to "in his latest works."

I have received letters from several obliging correspondents, among them three or four who were scholars at the Wellington-house Academy before or after Dickens's time, and one who attended the school with him; but such remark as they suggest will more properly accompany my third and closing volume.

PALACE GATE HOUSE, KENSINGTON, _29th of October, 1872._

ILLUSTRATIONS.

* * * * *

PAGE Autograph of Charles Dickens _Fly leaf_

Charles Dickens, æt. 47. From the portrait painted for the author in 1859 by W. P. Frith, R.A. Engraved by Robert Graves, A.R.A. _Frontispiece_

Charles Dickens, his Wife, and her Sister. Drawn by Daniel Maclise R.A. in 1842. Engraved by C. H. Jeens 48

Sketch of the Villa Bagnerello (Albaro), by Angus Fletcher 121

Drawing of the Palazzo Peschiere (Genoa), by Mr. Batson 141

At 58, Lincoln's-inn-fields, Monday the 2nd of December, 1844. From a drawing by Daniel Maclise, R.A. Engraved by C. H. Jeens 174

Rosemont, Lausanne. From a drawing by the Hon. Mrs. Watson 229

M. Barthelémy's card 325

Seventeen "fancies" for Mr. Dombey. Designed by H. K. Browne 345

Twelve more similar fancies. From the design of the same artist 346

Charles Dickens to George Cruikshank. Facsimile of a letter written in 1838, concerning the later illustrations to _Oliver Twist_ 349-50

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

* * * * *