Charles Dickens—A Lecture.

CHARLES DICKENS—A LECTURE .

BY BRO . RMltA HOLMES . Delivered at the . Working Mens' College , Ipswich , President , the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer , Sir Fiizroy Kelly .

LORD JOHN HERVEY , IN THE CHAIR . My Lord , Ladies and Gentlemen , — As this is my third appearance amongst you in the character of a lecturer , I can hardly call myself a stranger , or

apologise for coming before you to amuse and perchance instruct . And yet I should hesitate to call myself your teacher , for I daresay there are many here who know more about

the subject of my lecture than I myself ; doubtless many who could put in better form the stray thoughts that I have sketched down at random as they come concerning the great novelist who has gone to "the bourne from

whence no traveller returns . " Your kind reception on former occasions emboldens me to hope , however , that

you will listen patiently to what I have to say , that yon will judge leniently of the speaker and his shortcomings , whilst he endeavours to lay before you a brief outline of the life of a great man , and so by kindly sympathy , help

him to draw some mutual lessons of self-help from the career of one who was a true exemplar " of the nobility of labour , the long pedigree of toil . " Charles Dickens was born at

Portsmouth in the year 1812 . He was the son of Mr . John Dickens , a member of the Civil Service , who held a position as a clerk in the Wavy Pay Department . At the close of the war , Mr . Dickens retired on a pension , and came to London as Parliamentary reporter

for one of the daily papers . From " Men of the Time , " we gather that his son Charles was placed as a cleric in an attorney ' s office ; but a stron » literary bias led to his obtaining soon after an engagement as a reporter on the staff of the " Morning Chronicle , " then in the zenith of its fame , under Mr . John Black .

Mr . Augustus Sala , his henchman , who has written an admiring and admirable sketch of his friend and master , also speaks of his entering a lawyer ' s office , but seems equall y ignorant with the author of the

biographical notice I have quoted of Charles Dickens' earlier history . Sala alludes to the report , which he ridicules , that David Copperfield is in some parts autobiographical ; but in doing so lie only shows that lie is ignorant of what

Dickens himself kept secret , his early struggles with fortune , the trouble ami neglect of which he was the innocent victim .

Turning to Forster ' s admirable life of the great novelist , we come upon s pitiful story of his wrongs , and at once discover the orign of his sympathy with the suffering , the outcast , the oppressed ; at once find out the secret

of his realistic pictures of poverty . By the way , he wrote a tragedy when lie was quite a child , called Misnar , and used to sing comic songs wonderfully well . He was taken early to the theatre at Chatham , and he used to say that

frequent visits revealed to him many wondrous things , even at his early age , of which not the least terrific were that the witches in Macbeth bore an awful resemblance to the Thanes and other inhabitants of Scotland , and that hi

the good King Duncan couldn't rest his grave , but was constantly coming out of it , and calling himself somebody else . He went to a school in Clover-laue , Chathamkept b MrGilesa Bap tist

, y a . , Minister , where Forster describes hn » as a sensitive , thoughtful , feeble-bodied little boy , with an unusual sort of knowledge and fancy for such a chil't