IN THE MIDLANDS AND HOME COUNTIES.
The year 1838, in which Charles Dickens, accompanied by “Phiz,” hazarded
that bitter coach-ride to the northern wilds of Yorkshire, is memorable
also for another “bachelor excursion,” the two friends travelling by
road through the Midlands in the late autumn, _en route_ for
Warwickshire. They started from the coach office near Hungerford Street,
Strand, having booked seats to Leamington, where, on arrival, after a
very agreeable (but very cold) journey, they found “a roaring fire, an
elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital beds” awaiting them. The
“capital inn” affording these creature comforts to the two benumbed
passengers was Copps’s Royal Hotel, to which reference is made in
“Dombey and Son” as the establishment favoured by Mr. Dombey during his
stay at Leamington, the scene of his introduction to the lady who became
his second wife.
[Illustration: GAD’S HILL PLACE. (_Page 205._)
The home of Charles Dickens from 1857 to 1870.
_Photochrom Co., Ltd._]
The next morning Dickens and “Phiz” drove in a post-chaise to
Kenilworth, “with which we were both enraptured” (the novelist observed
in a letter to his wife), “and where I really think we _must_ have
lodgings next summer, please God that we are in good health and all goes
well. You cannot conceive how delightful it is. To read among the ruins
in fine weather would be perfect luxury.”[91] A similar opinion is
recorded in his private diary: “Away to Kenilworth—delightful—beautiful
beyond expression. Mem.: What a summer resort!—three months lie about
the ruins—books—thinking—seriously turn this over next year.” Thence
they proceeded to Warwick Castle, to which Dickens referred with less
enthusiasm in the same epistle as “an ancient building, newly restored,
and possessing no very great attraction beyond a fine view and some
beautiful pictures”; thence to Stratford-on-Avon, where both novelist
and artist “sat down in the room where Shakespeare was born, and left
our autographs and read those of other people, and so forth.” Dickens’s
entry in the diary recording this circumstance is reminiscent of Alfred
Jingle’s staccato style; thus: “Stratford—Shakespeare—the birthplace,
visitors, scribblers, old woman—Qy. whether she knows what Shakespeare
did, etc.” The secretary and librarian of Shakespeare’s birthplace (Mr.
Richard Savage) informs me that he has understood that these signatures
of Dickens and “Phiz” were written upon one of the plaster panels in the
birth-room, but have since been destroyed; the church albums for the
years 1848 and 1852 contain signatures of Dickens and of the members of
his amateur theatrical company, then touring to raise funds for
charitable purposes.[92]
It is evident that Dickens’s first impressions of Stratford were
recalled in “Nicholas Nickleby,” where Mrs. Nickleby remarks, in her
usual inconsequent manner, upon the visit of herself and her husband to
the birthplace, and their lodging at a hostelry in the town. Warwick,
Kenilworth, and the neighbourhood the author remembered when writing the
twenty-seventh chapter of “Dombey and Son,” in the description of that
“most enchanting expedition” to the castle: “Associations of the Middle
Ages, and all that, which is so truly exquisite,” exclaimed Cleopatra
with rapture; “such charming times! So full of faith! So vigorous and
forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from the commonplace!...
Pictures at the castle, quite divine!” “Those darling bygone times,” she
observed to Mr. Carker, bent upon showing him the beauties of that
historic pile, “with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old
dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic
vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything
that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!”
Cleopatra and the rest of the little party “made the tour of the
pictures, the walls, crow’s nest, and so forth,” and the castle “being
at length pretty well exhausted,” and Edith Grainger having completed a
sketch of the exterior of the ancient building (concerning which sketch
Mr. Carker fawningly avowed that he was unprepared “for anything so
beautiful, and so unusual altogether”), a stroll among the haunted ruins
of Kenilworth, “and more rides to more points of view ... brought the
day’s expedition to a close.”
[Illustration: THE LEATHER BOTTLE, COBHAM. (_Page 210._)
Dickens, in his early days, stayed at the Leather Bottle on more
than one occasion, and in 1841 spent a day and a night here with
Forster.]
Quitting Stratford the next day, Dickens and his companion intended to
proceed to Bridgnorth; but were dismayed to find there were no coaches,
which fact compelled them to continue their journey to Shrewsbury and
Chester by way of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, “starting by eight
o’clock through a cold, wet fog, and travelling, when the day had
cleared up, through miles of cinder-paths, and blazing furnaces, and
roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and misery, as I
never before witnessed.”[93] His impressions of the Black Country are
vividly portrayed in the forty-third and succeeding chapters of “The Old
Curiosity Shop,” and there is good reason to suppose that a portion at
least of the itinerary of the pilgrimage of little Nell and her
grandfather, after their flight from London to escape from the evil
influence of Quilp, was based upon his own tour, undertaken two years
previously. Indeed, so far as the above-mentioned chapter is concerned,
there is evidence of this in a letter to Forster, apropos of the story,
where the novelist says: “You will recognise a description of the road
we travelled between Birmingham and Wolverhampton; but I had conceived
it so well in my mind that the execution does not please me so well as I
expected.”
With regard to the depressing effect wrought upon the mind of the
traveller through the Black Country, it is gratifying to know that a
project is seriously contemplated by which this scene of waste and
desolation may be restored to its original condition by reafforestation.
Sir Oliver Lodge recently presided at an important meeting held in
Birmingham to consider the question, and it was agreed that, now that
the mineral wealth of the locality had been exhausted, it was only right
that the surface of the land should be altered for good by a system of
tree-planting, the land itself being rendered useless for mining,
agriculture, and habitation.
Birmingham is mentioned frequently throughout the works of Dickens, who
visited the city on several occasions, staying at one time at the old
Hen and Chickens Inn. He must have known this important manufacturing
centre in his journalistic days, for he made it the scene of that
well-remembered incident recorded in the fiftieth chapter of “The
Pickwick Papers,” where Mr. Pickwick calls upon Mr. Winkle, senior, with
a difficult and delicate commission. When the post-coach conveying Mr.
Pickwick and his friends drew near it was quite dark, “the straggling
cottages by the roadside; the dingy hue of every object visible; the
murky atmosphere; the paths of cinders and brick-dust; the deep red glow
of furnace fires in the distance; the volumes of dense smoke issuing
heavily forth from high, toppling chimneys, blackening and obscuring
everything around; the glare of distant lights; the ponderous waggons
which toiled along the road laden with clashing rods of iron, or piled
with heavy goods—all betokened their rapid approach to the great working
town of Birmingham. As they rattled through the narrow thoroughfares
leading to the heart of the turmoil, the sights and sounds of earnest
occupation struck more forcibly on the senses. The streets were thronged
with working people. The hum of labour resounded from every house,
lights gleamed from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and
the whirl of wheels and noise of machinery shook the trembling walls.
The fires, whose lurid, sullen light had been visible for miles, blazed
fiercely up in the great works and factories of the town. The din of
hammers, the rushing of steam, and the dead, heavy clanking of engines,
was the harsh music which arose from every quarter.” The postboy,
driving briskly through the open streets and past the “handsome and
well-lighted shops” on the outskirts of the town, drew up at the Old
Royal Hotel, where they were shown to a comfortable apartment. The _Old_
Royal survives in name only, the present building having been so altered
and modernized as to bear no resemblance to the three-storied structure,
with its plain, square front and Georgian porch, which temporarily
sheltered Mr. Pickwick. The residence of the elder Mr. Winkle (“a
wharfinger, Sir, near the canal”), whose name is a familiar one in
Birmingham, is believed to be a certain red-brick building in Easy Row,
in close proximity to the Old Wharf, a house which, with its white steps
leading to the doorway, answers fairly well to the description given in
the book.
In 1844 Dickens presided at a meeting of the Polytechnic Institution at
Birmingham, and delivered a powerful oration upon the subject of
education, comprehensive and unsectarian.
“A better and quicker audience,” he afterwards remarked, “never listened
to man”; and, in honour of the event, the large hall was profusely
decorated with artificial flowers, these also forming the words
“Welcome, Boz,” in letters about 6 feet high, while about the great
organ were immense transparencies bearing designs of an allegorical
character. In 1857 he was elected one of the first honorary members of
the Birmingham and Midland Institute, in which institution he had always
taken an active interest. In January, 1853, at the rooms of the Society
of Artists, Temple Row, a large company assembled to witness the
presentation to Dickens of a silver-gilt salver and diamond ring, in
recognition of valuable services rendered in aid of the fund then being
raised for the establishment of the Institute, and as a token of
appreciation of his “varied literary acquirements, genial philosophy,
and high moral teaching.” At the great banquet which followed this
interesting function, he offered to give Readings from his books in
further aid, and the promise was fulfilled in December, 1853, with the
result that nearly £500 were added to the fund; to commemorate these
first public Readings, Mrs. Dickens became the recipient of a silver
flower-basket.
Other Readings were given in Birmingham in the sixties. In September,
1869, he opened the session of the Midland Institute, the ceremony being
rendered memorable by a powerful speech, in which he thus briefly
declared his political creed:
“My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my
faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.” In 1870, as
President of the Institute, he distributed at the Town Hall the prizes
and certificates awarded to the most successful students; one of the
prize-winners was a Miss Winkle, whose name (so reminiscent of
“Pickwick”) was received with good-humoured laughter, and it is recorded
that the novelist, after making some remarks to the lady in an
undertone, observed to the audience that he had “recommended Miss Winkle
to change her name!”
[Illustration: THE HOUSE AT CHALK IN WHICH DICKENS SPENT HIS
HONEYMOON, APRIL, 1836. (_Page 211._)
Some of the earlier chapters, of “Pickwick” were written here.]
If a brief note in the diary (under date October 31, 1838) may be
accepted as evidence, the travellers stayed at the White Lion in Factory
Road, Wolverhampton. Twenty years later (August and November, 1858)
Dickens gave public Readings here, and on the first occasion there was a
performance of “Oliver Twist” at the local theatre, “in consequence (he
opined) of the illustrious author honouring the town with his presence.”
Writing at this time of the appearance of the country through which he
had then passed, he said that it “looked at its blackest”; “all the
furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits to be working....
It is market-day here (Wolverhampton), and the ironmasters are standing
out in the street (where they always hold high change), making such an
iron hum and buzz that they confuse me horribly. In addition there is a
bellman announcing something—not the Readings, I beg to say—and there is
an excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue,
or a pump, or a lamppost, or something or other, round which all the
Wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling.”[94]
Reverting to the tour of 1838, Dickens and “Phiz” left Wolverhampton for
Shrewsbury (the next stage), making their quarters at the old-fashioned
Lion Hotel, which establishment the novelist revisited during the
provincial Reading tour of 1858, when he thus described the inn to his
elder daughter:
“We have the strangest little rooms (sitting-room and two bedrooms
altogether), the ceilings of which I can touch with my hand. The windows
bulge out over the street, as if they were little stern windows in a
ship. And a door opens out of the sitting-room on to a little open
gallery with plants in it, where one leans over a queer old rail, and
looks all downhill and slantwise at the crookedest black and yellow old
houses, all manner of shapes except straight shapes. To get into this
room we come through a china closet; and the man in laying the cloth has
actually knocked down, in that repository, two geraniums and Napoleon
Bonaparte.” This quaint establishment, alas! has been modernized (if not
entirely rebuilt) since those days, and presents nothing of the
picturesqueness that attracted the author of “Pickwick.” Shrewsbury,
however, still retains and cherishes several of its “black and yellow”
(_i.e._, half-timbered) houses, and it is probably this town which we
find thus portrayed in the forty-sixth chapter of “The Old Curiosity
Shop”: “In the streets were a number of old houses, built of a kind of
earth or plaster, crossed and re-crossed in a great many directions with
black beams, which gave them a remarkable and very ancient look. The
doors, too, were arched and low, some with oaken portals and quaint
benches, where the former inhabitants had sat on summer evenings. The
windows were latticed in little diamond panes, that seemed to wink and
blink upon the passengers as if they were dim of sight.” On the night of
their arrival at Shrewsbury, Dickens and “Phiz” were present at a
“bespeak” at the theatre, and witnessed a performance of “The Love
Chase,” a ballet (“with a phenomenon!”),[95] followed by divers songs,
and the play of “A Roland for an Oliver.” “It is a good theatre,” was
the novelist’s comment, “but the actors are very funny. Browne laughed
with such indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment that an
old gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent indignation. The
bespeak party occupied two boxes; the ladies were full-dressed, and the
gentlemen, to a man, in white gloves with flowers in their button-holes.
It amused us mightily, and was really as like the Miss Snevellicci
business as it could well be.”[96]
[Illustration: THE CORN EXCHANGE, ROCHESTER. (_Page 214._)
“It is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the
pavement ... as if Time carried on business there and hung out his
sign” (“Seven Poor Travellers”).]
From the diary we learn that the friends journeyed by post-coach from
Shrewsbury over the Welsh border to Llangollen, passing two aqueducts by
the way—“beautiful road between the mountains—old abbey at the top of
mountain, Denis Brien or Rook Castle—Hand Hotel—Mrs. Phillips—Good.” The
parish of Llangollen is intersected by the celebrated aqueduct of
Pont-y-Lycylltan, and contiguous thereto stands Valle Crucis Abbey.
Thence the itinerary included Bangor, Capel Curig, Conway, Chester,
Birkenhead, Manchester (Adelphi Hotel), and Cheadle. There is good
reason for supposing that Dickens, during this tour, availed himself of
the opportunity of visiting the peaceful and picturesque village of
Tong, on the north-eastern borders of the county of Salop, and that he
probably posted there from Shrewsbury; for he assured the late
Archdeacon Lloyd that Tong Church is the veritable church described in
“The Old Curiosity Shop” as the scene of little Nell’s death.
“It was a very aged, ghostly place; the church had been built many
hundreds of years ago, and had once had a convent or monastery attached;
for arches in ruins, remains of oriel windows, and fragments of
blackened walls, were yet standing; while other portions of the old
building, which had crumbled away and fallen down, were mingled with the
churchyard earth and overgrown with grass, as if they too claimed a
burying-place and sought to mix their ashes with the dust of men.” Tong
Church was erected about the year 1411, and is a fine specimen of Gothic
architecture of the Early Perpendicular period. Owing to its fine
monuments it is called “The Westminster Abbey of the Midlands.” There
yet remain the original oak choir-stalls with the miserere seats and
carved poppy-heads; the old oak roof with its sculptured bosses; the
painted screens in the aisles, of very rich workmanship; and the
beautiful Vernon Chantry, called “The Golden Chapel,” from its costly
ornamentation, referred to in the story as the “baronial chapel.” The
sacred edifice underwent various reparations during the period between
1810 and 1838, still presenting, however, an exceedingly picturesque
aspect when the novelist beheld it in the latter year. Although a more
thorough restoration took place in 1892, we are assured that no old
features have been destroyed, but doubtless much of the halo of
antiquity, which imparts a poetical charm to such structures, is not so
evident as of yore. That Dickens derived inspiration from Tong and its
environment for the “local colouring” in chap. xlvi. and later chapters
of “The Old Curiosity Shop” it is impossible to doubt.
[Illustration: THE GUILDHALL, ROCHESTER. (_Page 214._)
Where Pip was bound prentice to Joe Gargery. Hogarth and his friends
played hopscotch under the colonnade in 1732.]
In December, 1858, Dickens was entertained at a public dinner at the
Castle Hotel, Coventry, on the occasion of receiving a gold repeater
watch of special construction by the watchmakers of the town. This gift
was tendered as a mark of gratitude for his Reading of the “Christmas
Carol,” given a year previously in aid of the funds of the Coventry
Institute. In acknowledging this testimonial the recipient said:
“This watch, with which you have presented me, shall be my companion in
my hours of sedentary working at home and in my wanderings abroad. It
shall never be absent from my side, and it shall reckon off the labours
of my future days.... And when I have done with time and its
measurement, this watch shall belong to my children; and as I have seven
boys, and as they have all begun to serve their country in various ways,
or to elect into what distant regions they shall roam, it is not only
possible, but probable, that this little voice will be heard scores of
years hence—who knows?—in some yet unfounded city in the wilds of
Australia, or communicating Greenwich time to Coventry Street, Japan....
From my heart of hearts I can assure you that the memory of to-night,
and of your picturesque and ancient city, will never be absent from my
mind, and I can never more hear the lightest mention of the name of
Coventry without having inspired in my breast sentiments of unusual
emotion and unusual attachment.” The novelist bequeathed the watch (and
the chain and seals worn with it) to his “dear and trusty friend” John
Forster.
In 1849 Dickens was an honoured guest at Rockingham Castle,
Northamptonshire, the home of his friends the Hon. Richard Watson and
Mrs. Watson. Writing thence to Forster, he said: “Picture to yourself,
my dear F., a large old castle, approached by an ancient keep (gateway),
portcullis, etc., filled with company, waited on by six-and-twenty
servants ... and you will have a faint idea of the mansion in which I am
at present staying....” His visits to Rockingham were often repeated,
and in the winter of 1850 he there supervised the construction of “a
very elegant little theatre,” of which he constituted himself the
manager, and early in the following year the theatre opened with
performances of “Used Up,” and “Animal Magnetism,” with the novelist
himself and members of his family in the cast of both plays. Charles
Dickens the younger considered that Rockingham Castle bears much more
than an accidental resemblance to Chesney Wold, the Lincolnshire mansion
of Sir Leicester Dedlock in “Bleak House,” upon which story his father
was engaged at the period here referred to. Indeed, the author himself
confessed as much to Mrs. Watson when he said: “In some of the
descriptions of Chesney Wold I have taken many bits, chiefly about trees
and shadows, from observations made at Rockingham.”
The castle is situated on a breezy eminence overlooking the valley of
the Welland, which river overflows occasionally and floods the
surrounding country, suggesting the watery Lincolnshire landscape
described in the second chapter of “Bleak House.” At the end of the
terrace is the Yew Walk, corresponding with the Ghost’s Walk at Chesney
Wold, and there is a sundial in the garden, also referred to in the
story. After passing under the archway, flanked by ancient bastion
towers (the remains of a former castle), a general view is obtained of
the north front of the mansion, one of the principal apartments in which
is the long drawing-room, the veritable drawing-room of Chesney Wold,
except that the fireplace is surmounted by a carved overmantel instead
of a portrait, while the family presentments at Rockingham are in the
hall, and not in the drawing-room, as related of those at Chesney Wold.
The village of Rockingham consists of one street, which ascends the hill
in the direction of the castle lodge; on the right as we enter the
village stands “a small inn” called the Sondes Arms, the prototype of
the Dedlock Arms, which bears the date 1763. The “solemn little church”
in the park, with its old carved oak pulpit, has been restored and
enlarged within the last thirty years. A footpath leading to the church
from the village street undoubtedly answers to Lawrence Boythorn’s
disputed right-of-way, concerning which that impulsive gentleman waxes
eloquent in the ninth chapter of “Bleak House.”
Of the county of Hertford Dickens always retained agreeable memories; he
frequently followed the advice once offered by him to W. H. Wills, to
“take a cheery flutter into the air of Hertfordshire.” During the early
years of his literary career he indulged a fondness for horse exercise,
and, generally accompanied by Forster, would ride to some destination a
few miles out of London, take luncheon at some favourite hostelry, and
thus enjoy a day’s recreation. Their usual refreshment-house on the
Great North Road was the Red Lion at High Barnet, in which town Oliver
Twist, footsore and weary, found a temporary resting-place on a cold
doorstep, and wondered at the great number of taverns there existing,
for (as related in the story) “every other house in Barnet was a tavern,
large or small.” We read in the same story that the infamous Bill Sikes,
in his flight after the murder of Nancy, eventually reached Hatfield,
turning down “the hill by the church of the quiet village, and, plodding
along the little street, crept into a small public-house....” It is
evident that Dickens knew Hatfield intimately, the topography of which
has since undergone considerable alteration in consequence of the
invasion of the Great Northern Railway. The “small public-house” entered
by Sikes was in all probability that quaint little ale-house the Eight
Bells, still flourishing at the bottom of the main street, while the
“little post-office,” where he recognised the mail from London, at that
time adjoined the Salisbury Arms (now a private residence), at which
establishment Dickens himself doubtless stayed on the night of October
27, 1838, when he and “Phiz” made their “bachelor excursion” to the West
Country.[97] Hatfield is introduced in “Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings,”[98]
for here, in the rural churchyard, Mr. Lirriper was buried; not that
Hatfield was his native place (explains the bereaved widow
pathetically), “but that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms, where
we went upon our wedding-day, and passed as happy a fortnight as ever
happy was.” In after-years she “put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a
little basket and went down to Hatfield churchyard, outside the coach,
and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of a proud and swelling love
on my husband’s grave, though, bless you! it had taken me so long to
clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine and smooth when
I laid it on the green, green, waving grass.”
[Illustration: ROCHESTER ABOUT 1810. (_Page 215._)
_From old prints._]
Mr. Lirriper’s youngest brother, by the way, who was something of a
scapegrace, also retained a sneaking affection for the Salisbury Arms,
derived from less sentimental reasons; here he enjoyed himself for the
space of a fortnight, and left without paying his bill, an omission
speedily rectified by the kind-hearted Mrs. Lirriper, in the innocent
belief that it was fraternal affection which induced her unprincipled
brother-in-law to favour Hatfield with his presence.
In 1859 Dickens became much interested in a working men’s club
established at Rothamsted by the late Sir John Bennet Lawes, the
renowned scientist, the purpose of this club being to enable all
agricultural labourers of the parish to enjoy their ale and pipes
independently of the public-house. The novelist, accompanied by his
brother-in-law, Henry Austin, drove to Rothamsted for the express
purpose of inspecting this novel institution, which numbers to-day
nearly 200 members, and was so delighted with what he saw and heard
respecting it that he not only published an article on the subject,[99]
but eagerly recommended the formation of such clubs in other country
neighbourhoods. Sir John Lawes is, of course, the prototype of Friar
Bacon in the article aforesaid, where the worthy baronet’s beautiful
manor-house (in which his son and heir now resides) is thus described:
“The sun burst forth gaily in the afternoon, and gilded the old gables,
and old mullioned windows, and old weathercock, and old clock-face, of
the quaint old house which is the dwelling of the man we sought. How
shall I describe him? As one of the most famous practical chemists of
the age? That designation will do as well as another—better, perhaps,
than most others. And his name? Friar Bacon.... We walked on the trim
garden terrace before dinner, among the early leaves and blossoms; two
peacocks, apparently in very tight new boots, occasionally crossing the
gravel at a distance. The sun shining through the old house-windows now
and then flashed out some brilliant piece of colour from bright hangings
within, or upon the old oak panelling; similarly, Friar Bacon, as we
paced to and fro, revealed little glimpses of his good work.”
In “Bleak House” Hertfordshire plays a conspicuous part, and it is
generally believed that the original of John Jarndyce’s residence, which
gives its name to the story, is to be discovered in or near St. Albans,
as mentioned in the book itself. Indeed, a picturesque Early Georgian
building at the top of Gombards Road (on the northern outskirts of the
city) has been christened “Bleak House” in the supposition that it was
the veritable home of Mr. Jarndyce; and there appears to be some
justification for this, as the position of the house in its relation to
the abbey church, and the characteristics of the locality, are in
harmony with the details particularized in the story. There is evidence,
too, that Dickens lodged in St. Albans when engaged upon the early
chapters of his novel; he and Douglas Jerrold stayed at the Queen’s
Hotel in Chequer Street, and it was then rumoured in the town that the
object of Dickens’s visit was to obtain “local colour.” His younger
brother Frederick and his friend Peter Cunningham lived for a while in
St. Albans, and it is remembered by some of the older inhabitants that
the author of “Pickwick” occasionally journeyed to St. Albans, when
opportunities arose, for a gossip with those boon companions in their
country retreat.
Of all Hertfordshire localities with which Dickens formed an
acquaintance, that claiming the most intimate association with him is
the pretty little village of Knebworth, the ancestral home of the
Lyttons. A warm friendship existed between Lord Lytton and his brother
novelist, and when, in 1850, some private theatricals were arranged for
performance in the grand banqueting-hall, with “Boz” and his goodly
company of amateurs in the cast (including Leech, Lemon, Tenniel,
Stanfield, Forster, and others), mirth and jollity reigned supreme. The
plays went off “in a whirl of triumph” (wrote Dickens at the time), “and
fired the whole length and breadth of Hertfordshire,” which is not
surprising when the circumstances are recalled. At Knebworth originated
that unfortunate scheme known as the “Guild of Literature and Art,”
formulated by Dickens and Lord Lytton for the amelioration of the
hardships of impecunious authors and artists, the funds in aid of the
project being augmented by the proceeds derived from the theatrical
entertainments. It was intended to erect and endow a retreat for such
necessitous persons, and a block of houses (in the Gothic style) was
actually built upon ground near the main road at Stevenage, given by
Lord Lytton for the purpose. Unhappily, these praiseworthy efforts
failed to appeal to those for whose benefit they were designed, and the
guild houses, after remaining unoccupied for nearly twenty years, were
converted into “suburban villas,” the rents being available for the
relief of such applicants as were qualified to receive it. It was
generally believed that the failure to secure tenants for the guild
houses under the special regulations was due chiefly to the fact of
their being regarded as little better than almshouses, and too remote
from London to be easily accessible; it must not be forgotten, too, that
true genius looks askance at acts of charity performed in its behalf,
the spirit of independence which usually characterizes it rebelling at
anything that appears to assume the form of patronage, although it must
be admitted that the guild rules give no cause for suspicion on that
score. Dickens, in a speech delivered in 1865, after a survey of the
newly-completed and attractive domiciles, said: “The ladies and
gentlemen whom we shall invite to occupy the houses we have built will
never be placed under any social disadvantage. They will be invited to
occupy them as artists, receiving them as a mark of the high respect in
which they are held by their fellow-workers. As artists, I hope they
will often exercise their calling within those walls for the general
advantage; and they will always claim, on equal terms, the hospitality
of their generous neighbour.” But it was not to be, and probably nothing
proved so disappointing to Dickens as the almost contemptuous
indifference with which this philanthropic proposal was received both by
the press and the public, who ridiculed it unmercifully. As a memento of
the scheme, there may be seen nearly opposite the guild houses a
roadside tavern rejoicing in the sign of Our Mutual Friend, intended as
a delicate compliment to the author of the story so entitled, then in
course of publication.
During a visit to Knebworth in 1861, Dickens and Mr. (afterwards Sir)
Arthur Helps—sometime Queen’s Secretary—called upon a most extraordinary
character, locally known as “Mad Lucas,” who lived in an extremely
miserly fashion in the kitchen of his house (Elmwood House, at Redcoats
Green, near Stevenage). This strange recluse died of apoplexy in 1874,
and was buried in Hackney Churchyard; his house, with its boarded-up
windows, shored-up walls, and dilapidated roof, continued to remain an
object of interest for many years afterwards, until in 1893 it was razed
to the ground and the materials sold by public auction. James Lucas,
“the Hertfordshire Hermit,” was really a well-educated and highly
intellectual man, who inherited the estate of his father, a prosperous
West India merchant, and it is conjectured that his distress at the
death of his widowed mother (who lived with him) was primarily the cause
of that mental aberration which assumed such an eccentric form; he even
refused to bury her corpse, so that the local authorities were compelled
to resort to a subterfuge in order to perform themselves the last rites.
He objected to furnish his rooms, and, attired simply in a loose blanket
fastened with a skewer, preferred to eat and sleep amidst the cinders
and rubbish-heaps (a sanctuary for rats) which accumulated in the
kitchen. Although his diet consisted of bread and cheese, red herrings,
and gin, there were choice wines available for friendly visitors, a
special vintage of sherry being reserved for ladies who thus honoured
him. The hermit’s penchant for tramps attracted all the vagabonds in the
neighbourhood, so that it became necessary for him to protect himself
from insult by retaining armed watchmen and barricading the house.
In “Tom Tiddler’s Ground”[100] Dickens has depicted a miserly recluse
named Mopes, and it is easy to discern that Lucas sat for the
portrait—indeed, it is said that in reading the number he recognised the
presentment, and expressed great indignation at what he considered to be
a much exaggerated account of himself and his environment. In the
chapter devoted to Mr. Mopes, the novelist tells us that he found his
strange abode in “a nook in a rustic by-road, down among the pleasant
dales and trout-streams of a green English county.” He does not think it
necessary for the reader to know what county; suffice it to say that one
“may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass-grown
Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a mile of
richly-cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk with a bold
peasantry, their country’s pride, who will tell you (if you want to
know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shillings a week.”
Those familiar with this portion of Hertfordshire cannot fail to
recognise in these allusions the neighbourhood of Stevenage, and a clue
to its identity is afforded by the allusion to “ancient barrows,” for at
Stevenage there are some remarkable tumuli known as the “Six Hills,”
which are believed to be ancient sepulchral barrows, or repositories of
the dead. If further evidence be required, it is forthcoming in the
following delightful portrayal of Stevenage itself, as it appeared to
Dickens over forty years ago:
“The morning sun was hot and bright upon the village street. The village
street was like most other village streets: wide for its height, silent
for its size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little
dwellings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as
carefully as if it were the Mint or the Bank of England) had called in
the Doctor’s house so suddenly that his brass doorplate and three
stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the Doctor
himself in his broadcloth among the smock frocks of his patients. The
village residences seem to have gone to law with a similar absence of
consideration, for a score of weak little lath-and-plaster cabins clung
in confusion about the Attorney’s red-brick house, which, with glaring
doorsteps and a most terrific scraper, seemed to serve all manner of
ejectments upon them. They were as various as labourers—high-shouldered,
wry-necked, one-eyed, goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-kneed,
rheumatic, crazy; some of the small tradesmen’s houses, such as the
crockery shop and the harness-maker’s, had a Cyclops window in the
middle of the gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that
some forlorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment
horizontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. So
bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so lean and
scant the village, that one might have thought the village had sown and
planted everything it once possessed to convert the same into crops.
This would account for the bareness of the little shops, the bareness of
the few boards and trestles designed for market purposes in a corner of
the street, the bareness of the obsolete inn and inn yard, with the
ominous inscription, ‘Excise Office,’ not yet faded out from the
gateway, as indicating the very last thing that poverty could get rid
of....” The village alehouse, mentioned in the first chapter of “Tom
Tiddler’s Ground,” and there called the Peal of Bells, is the White
Hart, Stevenage, where Dickens called on his way to see Lucas to inquire
of the landlord, old Sam Cooper, the shortest route to the “ruined
hermitage of Mr. Mopes the hermit,” some five miles distant. He found
Tom Tiddler’s Ground to be “a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius
of Mopes had laid waste as completely as if he had been born an Emperor
and a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently
substantial, all the window-glass of which had been long ago abolished
by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows of which were
barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over them on the
outside. A rick-yard, hip high in vegetable rankness and ruin, contained
out-buildings, from which the thatch had lightly fluttered away ... and
from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted.” After
noting the fragments of mildewed ricks and the slimy pond, the traveller
encountered the hermit himself, as well as he could be observed between
the window-bars, “lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in
front of a rusty fireplace,” when presently began the interview with
“the sooty object in blanket and skewer,” as related in the narrative
with approximate exactitude.