Читать книгу A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land - William R. Hughes - Страница 11

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"We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty."—Great Expectations.

Some sixty or seventy years must have elapsed since Dickens (through the mouthpiece of Pip, as above) recorded his first impressions of London; and although he lived in it many years, and in after life he loved to study its people in every stratum of society and every phase of their existence, it seems doubtful, apart from these studies, whether he ever really liked London itself, for in the Uncommercial Traveller, on "The Boiled Beef of New England," in describing London as it existed subsequently, he contrasts it unfavourably in some respects, not only with such continental cities as Paris, Bordeaux, Frankfort, Milan, Geneva, and Rome, but also with such British cities as Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Exeter, and Liverpool, with such American cities as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and with "a bright little town like Bury St. Edmunds." Nevertheless, it is indubitable that his writings, beyond those of any other author, have done wonders to popularize our knowledge of London—more particularly the London of the latter half of the last and the first half of the present century—and that those writings have given it a hold on our affections which it might not otherwise have acquired. In almost all his works we are introduced to a fresh spot in the Metropolis, perhaps previously known to us, but to which the fidelity of his descriptions and the reality of the characters peopling it, certainly give a historical value never before understood or appreciated. In The Life of Charles Dickens, written by his devoted friend, John Forster, may be found a corroboration of this view:—

"There seemed," says this biographer, "to be not much to add to our knowledge of London until his books came upon us, but each in this respect outstripped the other in its marvels. In Nickleby, the old city reappears under every aspect; and whether warmth and light are playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our privilege to see and feel it as it absolutely is. Its interior hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of the places we supposed that we knew the best."

What Scott did for Edinburgh and the Trossachs, Dickens did for London and the county of Kent. His fascination for the London streets has been dwelt on by many an author. Mr. Frank T. Marzials says in his interesting Life of Charles Dickens:—

"London remained the walking-ground of his heart. As he liked best to walk in London, so he liked best to walk at night. The darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. He never grew tired of it."

Mr. Sala records that he had been encountered "in the oddest places and in the most inclement weather: in Ratcliff Highway, on Haverstock Hill, on Camberwell Green, in Gray's Inn Lane, in the Wandsworth Road, at Hammersmith Broadway, in Norton Folgate, and at Kensal New Town. A hansom whirled you by the 'Bell and Horns' at Brompton, and there was Charles Dickens striding as with seven-leagued boots, seemingly in the direction of North End, Fulham. The Metropolitan Railway disgorged you at Lisson Grove, and you met Charles Dickens plodding sturdily towards the 'Yorkshire Stingo.' He was to be met rapidly skirting the grim brick wall of the prison in Coldbath Fields, or trudging along the Seven Sisters' Road at Holloway, or bearing under a steady press of sail through Highgate Archway, or pursuing the even tenor of his way up the Vauxhall Bridge Road."

That his feelings were intensely sympathetic with all classes of humanity there is amply evidenced in the following lines, written so far back as 1841, which Master Humphrey, "from his clock side in the chimney corner," speaks in the last page before the opening of Barnaby Rudge:—

"Heart of London, there is a moral in thy every stroke! as I look on at thy indomitable working, which neither death, nor press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors will influence one jot, I seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks into my heart, bidding me, as I elbow my way among the crowd, have some thought for the meanest wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away with scorn and pride from none that bear the human shape."

On a sultry day, such as this of Friday, the 24th August, 1888, with the thermometer at nearly 80 degrees in the shade, one needs some enthusiasm to undertake a tramp for a few hours over the hot and dusty streets of London, that we may glance at a few of the memorable spots that we have visited over and over again before. This preliminary tramp is therefore necessarily limited to visiting the houses where Dickens lived, from the year 1836 until he finally left it in 1860, on disposing of Tavistock House, and took up his residence at Gad's Hill Place. In our way we shall take a few of the places rendered famous in the novels, but it would require a "knowledge of London" as "extensive and peculiar" as that of Mr. Weller, and would occupy a week at least, to exhaust the interest of all these associations.

Our temporary quarters are at our favourite "Morley's," in Trafalgar Square, one of those old-fashioned, comfortable hotels of the last generation, where the guest is still known as "Mr. H.," and not as "Number 497." And what is very relevant to our present purpose, Morley's revives associations of the hotels, or "Inns," as they were more generally called in Charles Dickens's early days. Strolling from Morley's eastward along the Strand, to which busy thoroughfare there are numerous references in the works of Dickens, we pass on our left the Golden Cross Hotel, a great coaching-house half a century ago, from whence the Pickwickians and Mr. Jingle started, on the 13th of May, 1827, by the "Commodore" coach for Rochester. "The low archway," against which Mr. Jingle thus prudently cautioned the passengers—"Heads! Heads! Take care of your heads!" with the addition of a very tragic reference to the head of a family, was removed in 1851, and the hotel has the same appearance now that it presented after that alteration. The house was a favourite with David Copperfield, who stayed there with his friend Steerforth on his arrival "outside the Canterbury coach;" and it was in one of the public rooms here, approached by "a side entrance to the stable-yard," that the affecting interview took place with his humble friend Mr. Peggotty, as touchingly recorded in the fortieth chapter of David Copperfield. The two famous "pudding shops" in the Strand, so minutely described in connection with David's early days, have of course long been removed:—

"One was in a court close to St. Martin's Church—at the back of the Church—which is now removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, two pennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. A good shop for the latter was in the Strand—somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did I dine off it."

Young Dickens at the Blacking Warehouse.

Nearly opposite the Golden Cross Hotel is Craven Street, where (says Mr. Allbut), at No. 39, Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist resided after removing from Pentonville, and where the villain Monks was confronted, and made a full confession of his guilt.

"Ruminating on the strange mutability of human affairs," after the manner of Mr. Pickwick, we call to mind, on the same side of the way, Hungerford Stairs, Market, and Bridge, all well remembered in the days of our youth, but now swept away to make room for the commodious railway terminus at Charing Cross. Here poor David Copperfield "served as a labouring hind," and acquired his grim experience with poverty in Murdstone and Grinby's (alias Lamert's) Blacking Warehouse. Hungerford Suspension Bridge many years ago was removed to Clifton, and we never pass by it on the Great Western line without recalling recollections of poor David's sorrows.

Next in order comes Buckingham Street, at the end house of which, on the east side (No. 15), lived Mrs. Crupp, who let apartments to David Copperfield in happier days. Here he had his "first dissipation," and entertained Steerforth and his two friends, Mrs. Crupp imposing on him frightfully as regards the dinner; "the handy young man" and the "young gal" being equally troublesome as regards the waiting. The description of "my set of chambers" in David Copperfield seems to point to the possibility of Dickens having resided here, but there is no evidence to prove it. At Osborn's Hotel, now the Adelphi, in John Street, Mr. Wardle and his daughter Emily stayed on their visit to London, after Mr. Pickwick was released from the Fleet Prison.

Durham Street, a little further to the right, leads to the "dark arches," which had attractions for David Copperfield, who "was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place with those dark arches." He says:—"I see myself emerging one evening from out of these arches, on a little public-house, close to the river, with a space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing." Nearly opposite is the Adelphi Theatre, notable as having been the stage whereon most of the dramas founded on Dickens's works were first produced, from Nicholas Nickleby in 1838, in which Mrs. Keeley, John Webster, and O. Smith took part, down to 1867, when No Thoroughfare was performed, "the only story," says Mr. Forster, "Dickens himself ever helped to dramatize," and which was rendered with such fine effect by Fechter, Benjamin Webster, Mrs. Alfred Mellon, and other important actors. He certainly assisted in Madame Celeste's production of A Tale of Two Cities, even if he had no actual part in the writing of the piece.

Mr. Allbut thinks that the residence of Miss La Creevy, the good-natured miniature painter (whose prototype was Miss Barrow, Dickens's aunt on his mother's side) in Nicholas Nickleby, was probably at No. 111, Strand. It was "a private door about half-way down that crowded thoroughfare."

We proceed onwards, passing Wellington Street North, where at No. 16, the office of the famous Household Words formerly stood; All the Year Round, its successor, conducted by Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist's eldest son, now being at No. 26 in the same street.

A little further on, on the same side of the way, and almost facing Somerset House, at No. 332, was the office of the once celebrated Morning Chronicle, on the staff of which Dickens in early life worked as a reporter. The Chronicle was a great power in its day, when Mr. John Black ("Dear old Black!" Dickens calls him, "my first hearty out-and-out appreciator, … with never-forgotten compliments … coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever knew,") was editor, and Mr. J. Campbell, afterwards Lord Chief-Justice Campbell, its chief literary critic. The Chronicle died in 1862.

The west corner of Arundel Street (No. 186, Strand, where now stand the extensive premises of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son) was formerly the office of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers of almost all the original works of Charles Dickens. After 1850 the firm removed to 193, Piccadilly, their present house being at 11, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. They own the copyright, and publish all Dickens's works; and they estimate that two million copies of Pickwick[1] have been sold in England alone, exclusive of the almost innumerable popular editions, from one penny upwards, published by other firms, the copyright of this work having expired. The penny edition was sold by hundreds of thousands in the streets of London some years ago.

This statement will probably be surprising to the remarkable class of readers thus described by that staunch admirer of Dickens, Mr. Andrew Lang, in "Phiz," one of his charming Lost Leaders. He says:—

"It is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies and gentlemen of a particular type, that they have ceased to care for Dickens, as they have ceased to care for Scott. They say they cannot read Dickens. When Mr. Pickwick's adventures are presented to the modern maid, she behaves like the Cambridge freshman. 'Euclide viso, cohorruit et evasit.' When he was shown Euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. Even so do most young people act when they are expected to read Nicholas Nickleby and Martin Chuzzlewit. They call these master-pieces 'too gutterly gutter'; they cannot sympathize with this honest humour and conscious pathos. Consequently the innumerable references to Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and Mr. Pecksniff, and Mr. Winkle, which fill our ephemeral literature, are written for these persons in an unknown tongue. The number of people who could take a good pass in Mr. Calverley's Pickwick Examination Paper is said to be diminishing. Pathetic questions are sometimes put. Are we not too much cultivated? Can this fastidiousness be anything but a casual passing phase of taste? Are all people over thirty who cling to their Dickens and their Scott old fogies? Are we wrong in preferring them to Bootles' Baby, and The Quick or the Dead, and the novels of M. Paul Bourget?"

Fountain Court, Temple.

But this by the way. Turning down Essex Street, we visit the Temple, celebrated in several of Dickens's novels—Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend—but in none more graphically than in Martin Chuzzlewit, in which is described the fountain in Fountain Court, where Ruth Pinch goes to meet her lover, "coming briskly up, with the best little laugh upon her face that ever played in opposition to the fountain; and beat it all to nothing." And when John Westlock came at last, "merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin's rim, and vanished." As we saw the fountain on the bright August morning of our tramp, the few shrubs, flowers, and ferns planted round it gave it quite a rural effect, and we wished long life to the solitary specimen of eucalyptus, whose glaucous-green leaves and tender shoots seemed ill-fitted to bear the nipping frosts of our variable climate.

Coming out of the Temple by Middle Temple Lane, we pass on our left Child's Bank, the "Tellson's Bank" of A Tale of Two Cities, "which was an old-fashioned place even in the year 1780," but was replaced in 1878 by the handsome building suitable to its imposing neighbours, the Law Courts. Temple Bar, which adjoined the Old Bank, and was one of the relics of Dickens's London, has passed away, having since been re-erected on "Theobalds," near Waltham Cross.

"A walk down Fleet Street"—one of Dr. Johnson's enjoyments—leads us to Whitefriars Street, on the east side of which, at No. 67, is the office of The Daily News, edited by Dickens from 21 Jany. to 9 Feby., 1846, and for which he wrote the original prospectus, and subsequently, in a series of letters descriptive of his Italian travel, his delightful Pictures from Italy. St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street is supposed to have been that immortalized in The Chimes.

It was in this street many years before (in the year 1833, when he was only twenty-one), as recorded in Forster's Life, that Dickens describes himself as dropping his first literary sketch, Mrs. Joseph Porter over the Way, "stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box in a dark office up a dark court in Fleet Street; and he has told his agitation when it appeared in all the glory of print:—'On which occasion I walked down to Westminster Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there.'" The "dark court" referred to was no doubt Johnson's Court, as the printers of the Monthly Magazine, Messrs. Baylis and Leighton, had their offices here. This contribution appeared in the January number 1834 of this magazine, published by Messrs. Cochrane and Macrone of 11 Waterloo Place.

Turning up Chancery Lane, also celebrated in many of Charles Dickens's novels, we leave on our left Bell Yard, where lodged the ruined suitor in Chancery, poor Gridley, "the man from Shropshire" in Bleak House, but the yard has, through part of it being required for the New Law Courts and other modern improvements, almost lost its identity.

On our right is Old Serjeant's Inn, which leads into Clifford's Inn, where the conference took place between John Rokesmith and Mr. Boffin, when the former, to the latter's amazement, said:—"If you would try me as your Secretary." The place is thus referred to in the eighth chapter of Our Mutual Friend:—

"Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the more embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy Mr. Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat preserve, of Clifford's Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive spot."

Symond's Inn, described as "a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn, like a large dust-bin of two compartments and a sifter,"—where Mr. Vholes had his chambers, and where Ada Clare came to live after her marriage, there tending lovingly the blighted life of the suitor in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, poor Richard Carstone—exists no more. It formerly stood on the site of Nos. 25, 26, and 27, now handsome suites of offices.

Lincoln's Inn, a little higher up on the opposite side of the way, claims our attention, in the Hall of which was formerly the Lord High Chancellor's Court, wherein the wire-drawn Chancery suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Bleak House dragged its course wearily along. The offices of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of Old Square, Solicitors in the famous suit, were visited by Esther Summerson, who says:—"We passed into sudden quietude, under an old gallery, and drove on through a silent square, until we came to an old nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep broad flight of stairs like an entrance to a church." Mr. Serjeant Snubbin, Mr. Pickwick's counsel in the notorious cause of Bardell v. Pickwick, also had his chambers in this square. We then enter Lincoln's Inn Fields, and pay a visit to No. 58, on the furthest or west side near Portsmouth Street. This ancient mansion was the residence of Dickens's friend and biographer, John Forster, before he went to live at Palace Gate. It is minutely described in the tenth chapter of Bleak House as the residence of Mr. Tulkinghorn, "a large house, formerly a house of state, … let off in sets of chambers now; and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness lawyers lie like maggots in nuts." The "foreshortened allegory in the person of one impossible Roman upside down," who afterwards points to the "new meaning" (i.e. the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn) has, it is to be regretted, since been whitewashed. On the 30th November, 1844, here Dickens read The Chimes to a few intimate friends, an event immortalized by Maclise's pencil, and, as appreciative of the feelings of the audience, Forster alludes "to the grave attention of Carlyle, the eager interest of Stanfield and Maclise, the keen look of poor Laman Blanchard, Fox's rapt solemnity, Jerrold's skyward gaze, and the tears of Harness and Dyce."

Staple Inn, Holborn.

That celebrated tavern called the "Magpie and Stump," referred to in the twenty-first chapter of Pickwick—where that hero spent an interesting evening on the invitation of Lowten (Mr. Perker's clerk), and heard "the old man's tale about the queer client,"—is supposed to have been "The old George the IVth" in Clare Market, close by. Retracing our steps through Bishop's Court (where lived Krook the marine-store dealer, and in whose house lodged poor Miss Flite and Captain Hawdon, alias Nemo) into Chancery Lane, we arrive at the point from whence we diverged, and turn into Cursitor Street. Like other places adjacent, this street has been subjected to "improvements," and it is scarcely possible to trace "Coavinses," so well known to Mr. Harold Skimpole, or indeed the place of business and residence of Mr. Snagsby, the good-natured law stationer, and his jealous "little woman." It will be remembered that it was here the Reverend Mr. Chadband more than once "improved a tough subject":—"toe your advantage, toe your profit, toe your gain, toe your welfare, toe your enrichment,"—and refreshed his own. Thackeray was partial to this neighbourhood, and Rawdon Crawley had some painful experiences in Cursitor Street.

Bearing round by Southampton Buildings, we reach Staple Inn—behind the most ancient part of Holborn—originally a hostelry of the merchants of the Wool-staple, who were removed to Westminster by Richard II. in 1378. At No. 10 in the first court, opposite the pleasant little garden and picturesque hall, resided the "angular" but kindly Mr. Grewgious, attended by his "gloomy" clerk, Mr. Bazzard, and on the front of the house over the door still remains the tablet with the mysterious initials:—

but our enquiries fail to discover their meaning. Dickens humorously suggests "Perhaps John Thomas," "Perhaps Joe Tyler," and under hilarious circumstances, "Pretty Jolly too," and "Possibly jabbered thus!" They are understood to be the initials of the treasurer of the Inn at the date above-mentioned. It is interesting to state that the Inn has been most appropriately restored by the enterprising Prudential Assurance Company, who have recently purchased it; and on the seat in the centre of the second Court (facing Holborn), under the plane trees which adorn it, were resting a few wayfarers, who seemed to enjoy this thoughtful provision made by the present owners. We can picture in one of the rooms on the first floor of P. J. T.'s house (very memorable to the writer of these lines, some brief part of his early life having been passed there), the conference described in the twentieth chapter of Edwin Drood, between Mr. Grewgious and his charming ward—so aptly pourtrayed by Mr. Luke Fildes in his beautiful drawing, "Mr. Grewgious experiences a new sensation,"—as well as all the other scenes which took place here.

Turning into Holborn through the Archway of Staple Inn, and stopping for a minute to admire the fine effect of the recently restored fourteenth-century old-timbered houses of the Inn which face that thoroughfare, a few steps lower down take us to Barnard's Inn, where Pip in Great Expectations lodged with his friend Herbert Pocket when he came to London. Dickens calls it, "the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats." Simple-minded Joe Gargery, who visited Pip here, persisted for a time in calling it an "hotel," and after his visit thus recorded his impressions of the place:—

"The present may be a werry good inn, and I believe its character do stand i; but I wouldn't keep a pig in it myself—not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him."

A few plane trees—the glory of all squares and open spaces in London, where they thrive so luxuriantly—give a rural appearance to this crowded place, while the sparrows tenanting them enjoy the sunbeams passing through the scanty branches.

Our next halting-place, Furnival's Inn, is one of profound interest to all pious pilgrims in "Dickens-Land," for there the genius of the young author was first recognized, not only by the novel-reading world, but also by his contemporaries in literature. Thackeray generously spoke of him as "the young man who came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it."

Furnival's Inn in Holborn, which stands midway between Barnard's Inn and Staple Inn on the opposite side of the way, is famous as having been the residence of Charles Dickens in his bachelor days, when a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. He removed here from his father's lodgings at No. 18, Bentinck Street, and had chambers, first the "three pair back" (rather gloomy rooms) of No. 13 from Christmas 1834 until Christmas 1835, when he removed to the "three pair floor south" (bright little rooms) of No. 15, the house on the right-hand side of the square having Ionic ornamentations, which he occupied from 1835 until his removal to No. 48, Doughty Street, in March 1837. The brass-bound iron rail still remains, and the sixty stone steps which lead from the ground-floor to the top of each house are no doubt the same over which the eager feet of the youthful "Boz" often trod. He was married from Furnival's Inn on 2nd April, 1836, to Catherine, eldest daughter of Mr. George Hogarth, his old colleague on the Morning Chronicle, the wedding taking place at St. Luke's Church, Chelsea, and doubtless lived here in his early matrimonial days much in the same way probably as Tommy Traddles did, as described in David Copperfield. Here the Sketches by Boz were written, and most of the numbers of the immortal Pickwick Papers, as also the lesser works: Sunday under Three Heads, The Strange Gentleman, and The Village Coquettes. The quietude of this retired spot in the midst of a busy thoroughfare, and its accessibility to the Chronicle offices in the Strand, must have been very attractive to the young author. His eldest son, the present Mr. Charles Dickens, was born here on the 6th January, 1837.

It was in Furnival's Inn, probably in the year 1836, that Thackeray paid a visit to Dickens, and thus described the meeting:—

"I can remember, when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works in covers which were coloured light green and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I remember walking up to his chambers in Furnival's Inn, with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable."

How wonderfully interesting these "two or three drawings" would be now if they could be discovered! Of the score or so of "Extra Illustrations" to Pickwick which have appeared, surely these (if they were such) which Dickens "did not find suitable," combining as they did the genius of Dickens and Thackeray, whatever their merits or defects may have been, would be most highly prized.

John Westlock, in Martin Chuzzlewit, had apartments in Furnival's Inn, and was there visited by Tom Pinch. Wood's Hotel occupies a large portion of the square, and is mentioned in The Mystery of Edwin Drood as having been the Inn where Mr. Grewgious took rooms for his charming ward Rosa Bud, from whence he ordered for her refreshment, soon after her arrival at Staple Inn to escape Jasper's importunities, "a nice jumble of all meals," to which it is to be feared she did not do justice, and where "at the hotel door he afterwards confided her to the Unlimited head chamber-maid."

The Society of Arts have considerately put up on the house No. 15 one of their neat terra-cotta memorial tablets with the following inscription:—

CHARLES

DICKENS,

Novelist, Lived here. B. 1812, D. 1870.

No. 48, Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square. Dickens's Residence 1837–9.

We proceed along Holborn, and go up Kingsgate Street, where "Poll Sweedlepipe, Barber and Bird Fancier," lived, "next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite the original cats'-meat warehouse." The immortal Sairey Gamp lodged on the first floor, where doubtless she helped herself from the "chimley-piece" whenever she felt "dispoged." Here also the quarrel took place between that old lady and her friend Betsey Prig anent that mythical personage, "Mrs. Harris." We pass through Red Lion Square and up Bedford Row, and after proceeding along Theobald's Road for a short distance, turn up John Street, which leads into Doughty Street, where, at No. 48, Charles Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839. The house, situated on the east side of the street, has twelve rooms, is single-fronted, three-storied, and not unlike No. 2, Ordnance Terrace, Chatham. A tiny little room on the ground-floor, with a bolt inside in addition to the usual fastening, is pointed out as having been the novelist's study. It has an outlook into a garden, but of late years this has been much reduced in size. A bill in the front window announces "Apartments to let," and they look very comfortable. Doughty Street, now a somewhat noisy thoroughfare, must have been in Charles Dickens's time a quiet, retired spot. A large pair of iron gates reach across the street, guarded by a gate-keeper in livery. "It was," says Mr. Marzials in his Life of Dickens, "while living at Doughty Street that he seems, in great measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and idiosyncrasies. His favourite time for work was the morning between the hours of breakfast and lunch; … he was essentially a day worker and not a night worker. … And for relaxation and sedative when he had thoroughly worn himself with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily exercise. … At first riding seems to have contented him, … but soon walking took the place of riding, and he became an indefatigable pedestrian. He would think nothing of a walk of twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous hey-day of youth, but afterwards to the very last. … "

It was at Doughty Street that he experienced a bereavement which darkened his life for many years, and to which Forster thus alludes:—

"His wife's next younger sister Mary, who lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for a time completely bore him down. His grief and suffering were intense, and affected him … through many after years." Pickwick was temporarily suspended, and he sought change of scene at Hampstead. Forster visited him there, and to him he opened his heart. He says:—"I left him as much his friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if I had known him for years."

Tavistock House, Tavistock Square. Dickens's Residence 1851–60.

Some time afterwards, we find him inviting Forster "to join him at 11 a.m. in a fifteen-mile ride out and ditto in, lunch on the road, with a six o'clock dinner in Doughty Street."

Charles Dickens's residence in Doughty Street was but of short duration—from 1837 to 1840 only; but there he completed Pickwick, and wrote Oliver Twist, Memoirs of Grimaldi, Sketches of Young Gentlemen, Sketches of Young Couples, and The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. His eldest daughter Mary was born here.

In proper sequence we ought to proceed to Dickens's third London residence, No. 1, Devonshire Terrace, but it will be more convenient to take his fourth residence on our way. We therefore retrace our steps into Theobald's Road, pass through Red Lion and Bloomsbury Squares, and along Great Russell Street as far as the British Museum, where Dickens is still remembered as "a reader" (merely remarking that it of course contains a splendid collection of the original impressions of the novelist's works, and "Dickensiana," as is evidenced by the comprehensive Bibliography furnished by Mr. John P. Anderson, one of the librarians, to Mr. Marzials' Life of Dickens), which we leave on our left, and turn up Montague Street, go along Upper Montague Street, Woburn Square, Gordon Square, and reach Tavistock Square, at the upper end of which, on the east side, Gordon Place leads us into a retired spot cut off as it were from communication with the rest of this quiet neighbourhood. Three houses adjoin each other—handsome commodious houses, having stone porticos at entrance—and in the first of these, Tavistock House, Dickens lived from 1851 until 1860, with intervals at Gad's Hill Place. This beautiful house, which has eighteen rooms in it, is now the Jews' College. The drawing-room on the first floor still contains a dais at one end, and it is said that at a recent public meeting held here, three hundred and fifty people were accommodated in it, which serves to show what ample quarters Dickens had to entertain his friends.

Hans Christian Andersen, who visited Dickens here in 1857, thus describes this fine mansion:—

"In Tavistock Square stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of garden in front are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. A large garden with a grass-plat and high trees stretches behind the house, and gives it a countrified look, in the midst of this coal and gas steaming London. In the passage from street to garden hung pictures and engravings. Here stood a marble bust of Dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom door were inserted the bas-reliefs of Night and Day, after Thorwaldsen. On the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing-table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter Dickens and his friends acted plays to the satisfaction of all parties. The kitchen was underground, and at the top of the house were the bedrooms."

It appears that Andersen was wrong about the plays being acted in the "rich library," as I am informed by Mr. Charles Dickens that "the stage was in the school-room at the back of the ground-floor, with a platform built outside the window for scenic purposes."

With reference to the private theatricals (or "plays," as Andersen calls them, including The Frozen Deep, by Wilkie Collins, in which Dickens, the author, Mark Lemon, and others performed, and for which in the matter of the scenery "the priceless help of Stanfield had again been secured"), on a temporary difficulty arising as to the arrangements, Dickens applied to Mr. Cooke of Astley's, "who drove up in an open phaeton drawn by two white ponies with black spots all over them (evidently stencilled), who came in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle exactly as they come into the ring when they draw anything, and went round and round the centre bed (lilacs and evergreens) of the front court, apparently looking for the clown. A multitude of boys, who felt them to be no common ponies, rushed up in a breathless state—twined themselves like ivy about the railings, and were only deterred from storming the enclosure by the Inimitable's eye." Mr. Cooke was not, however, able to render any assistance.

Mrs. Arthur Ryland of The Linthurst, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, who was present at Tavistock House on the occasion of the performance of The Frozen Deep, informs me that when Dickens returned to the drawing-room after the play was over, the constrained expression of face which he had assumed in presenting the character of Richard Wardour remained for some time afterwards, so strongly did he seem to realize the presentment. The other plays performed were Tom Thumb, 1854, and The Lighthouse and Fortunus, 1855.

The following copy of a play-bill—in my collection—of one of these performances is certainly worth preserving in a permanent form, for the double reason that it is extremely rare, and contains one of Dickens's few poetical contributions, The Song of the Wreck, which was written specially for the occasion.