In the summer of this year, Charles Dickens hired a house at Dover for
three months, whither he went with his family. At the end of this time
he sent his children and servants back to Tavistock House, and crossed
over to Boulogne, with his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town
and its neighbourhood, with a view of making it his summer quarters in
the following year. Many amateur performances were given in the
provinces in aid of the fund for the Guild of Literature and Art;
Charles Dickens, as usual, taking the whole management on his own
shoulders.
In March, the first number of "Bleak House" appeared, and he was at work
on this book all through the year, as well as being constantly occupied
with his editorship of "Household Words."
We have, in the letters for this year, Charles Dickens's first to Lord
John Russell (afterwards the Earl Russell); a friend whom he held in the
highest estimation, and to whom he was always grateful for many personal
kindnesses. We have also his first letter to Mr. Wilkie Collins, with
whom he became most intimately associated in literary work. The
affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which he held
him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in Charles Dickens's
own letters to Mr. Collins, and in his letters to other friends.
"Those gallant men" (in the letter to Mr. J. Crofton Croker) had
reference to an antiquarian club, called the Noviomagians, who were
about to give a dinner in honour of Sir Edward Belcher and Captain
Kellett, the officers in command of the Arctic Exploring Expedition, to
which Charles Dickens was also invited. Mr. Crofton Croker was the
president of this club, and to denote his office it was customary to put
on a cocked hat after dinner.
The "lost character" he writes of in a letter to Mrs. Watson, refers to
two different decipherings of his handwriting; this sort of study being
in fashion then, and he and his friends at Rockingham Castle deriving
much amusement from it.
The letter dated July 9th was in answer to an anonymous correspondent,
who wrote to him as follows: "I venture to trespass on your attention
with one serious query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'Bleak
House.' Do the supporters of Christian missions to the heathen really
deserve the attack that is conveyed in the sentence about Jo' seated in
his anguish on the door-step of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts? The allusion is severe, but is it just? Are
such boys as Jo' neglected? What are ragged schools, town missions, and
many of those societies I regret to see sneered at in the last number of
'Household Words'?"
The "Duke of Middlesex," in the letter we have here to Mr. Charles
Knight, was the name of the character played by Mr. F. Stone, in Sir E.
B. Lytton's comedy of "Not so Bad as we Seem."
Our last letter in this year, to Mr. G. Linnaeus Banks, was in
acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a proposed public
dinner to Charles Dickens, to be given by the people of Birmingham, when
they were also to present him with a salver and a diamond ring. The
dinner was given in the following year, and the ring and salver (the
latter an artistic specimen of Birmingham ware) were duly presented by
Mr. Banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names of the
subscribers, at the rooms of the Birmingham Fine Arts Association. Mr.
Banks, and the artist, Mr. J. C. Walker, were the originators of this
demonstration.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. C. Macready.]