Charles Dickens—A Lecture.

kindness and sympathy for others , and asking pardon for the liberty he took in hoping that he might be permitted to offer some acknowledgment of what not only had cheered and stimulated him through all his life , but had contributed so much to I he success of it . The letter enclosed £ 500 .

Dickens was greatly touched by this , and told the writer , in sending back his cheque , that he would certainly have taken it if he had not been—though not a man of fortune—a prosperous man himself ; but that the letter , and the spirit of its offer , had so gratified him , that if the writer pleased

to send him any small memorial of it he would gladly receive it . The memorial soon came . A richly worked basket of silver , inscribed , " From one who has been cheered and stimulated by Mr . Dickens' writingsand held the

, author among his first remembrances when he became prosperous , " was accompanied by an extremely handsome silver centrepiece for the table , of which the design was four figures , representing the Seasons . But the kindly donor shrank from sending

Winter to one whom he would fain connect with none but the bri ghter and milder days , and he had struck the fourth figure from the design . " I never look at it , " said Dickens , " that I don't think most of the winter . "

At his first reading m Liverpool 2 , 300 people come to hear him , and hundreds were turned away from the door . In 1862 , at his readings in London , he took £ 190 a night . For his last batch of readings , of which there were thirty , he was paid £ 50 a night and all expenses by Messrs .

Chappell , who undertook the management , and who made £ 4 , 720 profit . At his second readings in America in 1867 Dickens made £ 1 , 300 a week ! He made a great sensation with his reading in three short parts from " Oliver Twist , " in which

he introduced the murder scene with vast etl ' ect . Mr . Fang , the magistrate in " Oliver Twist , " was taken from Mr . Laing , the Hatton Garden magistrate , who was afterwards removed from the bench . The subsequent order in which Dickens ' s

works were published was , I believe , the following : — Of his Christmas books " The Chimes " appeared in 1845 , the "Cricket on the Hearth "in 1846 , "The Battle of Life "

in 1847 , "The Haunted Man and the Ghost ' s Bargain " in 1848 . " Dombey and Son" came out in 1847-8 , " David Copperfield" Mowed in 1849-50 , "Bleak House " in 1853 , " Little Dorrit" in 1856 , which was followed by " A Tale of Two Cities" "The Uncommercial Traveller "

, , and " Great Expectations , " which last three were reprinted from All the Year Round . In 1850 Mr . Dickens had started " Household Words , " which he conducted for some years , but in consequence of a quarrel with his publishers—the cause of

which we need not seek now—he brought it to a close in 1859 , and established in its place All the Year Hound . Messrs . Bradbury and Evans also started at that time Once a Week , which at first was very ably written and illustrated , but has since very much fallen off . All the Year Bound is still conducted by Mr . Dickens ' s son ,

and is a very high class periodical . * Dickens earned a high reputation as an amateur actor , and was passionately fond of the stage . He often organised performances to aid the funds of the Guild of Literature and Art—of which he was one of the founders—or some other good

object , and made handsome sums for charitable purposes in that way . Touching the originals of some of his great characters , I might mention that Walter Savage Landor , the poet , figured as Lawrence Bythorn , whilst Harold

Skimpole was no less the representative of Leigh Hunt . The derary -writing of Skimpole , as Forster calls it , was taken from Haydon , the painter . This character gave great offence to Hunt's friends , and Dickens afterwards apologised for making the fictitious character too like fact .