The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-17 00:00:00

Addi

will the fraudulent vendor be punished, and secondly
what is to become of this " butter ? "
A correspondent of Land and Water, alluding to the
appearance, at intervals, during the last year or no, of
various kinds of rare birds in Nye, Park and Ken-
sington Gardens, points out that this is to a great
extent owing to the purification of the Thames by the
great drainage scheme, and that this and other
sanitary improveznents are rendering the air of
London mush more salubrious than f vmerly. Not a
doubt of it, and the extensive demolition of wretched
houses in overcrowded neighbourhoods has also mate-
rially tended towards this very desirable result. But
our river is not yet purified, and is very far fram being
the silvery Thames that poets of the last century
wrote about. Drainage into the river is only partially
remedied, and further reform in this direction has yet
to be effected. This reform, however, is slowly
progressing, and at the present day the river in
clearer than it has been certainly for the last
thirty years. The correspondent alluded to speaks of
the good time coming when observant naturalists will
find congenial occupation on the bauks of the Serpen-
tine, on account of our "ins iting the country back
again into our midst." This is very enthusiastic, but
there is some truth in it. And then an equally en-
thusiastic correspondent of the City Press, apparently
a London clerk, writes to say that he belongs, like
many City young men, to is naturalists' club. "On
alternate Saturda) s," he says, "the members will visit
Ilauopstead, Bsrnes, Richmond Park, Heaton, Chisel-
hurst, and half a dozen other of the collecting grounds
of London." And every rational, healthy, and enter-
tabling way of spending the Saturday half-holiday.
Some of these places have been of late years consider-
ably marred from a naturalist's point of view, but there
is much of the freshness and charm of nature left to
them stilL And jealously indeed should Londoners
watch that what few open spaces, commons, and fields
are yet available for healthy recreation should still be
preserved. How much need there is for vigilance is
shown by the fact that, whereas 230 acres were set
apart for Finsbury Park, we may now consider our.
selves very lucky if we get 115 acres.

THE BANQUET TO MR. CHARLES
DICKENS.
On Saturday evening the inhabitants of Liverpool
entertained Mr. Charles Dickens, at a grand banquet,
at St. George's Hall, under the presidency ot the
Mayor. Ladies as well as gentlemen were present,
the number of those who sat down being upwards of
600. Among those present, invited guests, in addition
to the guests of the evening, were the night Hon. Lord
Dufferin, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; M.
Alphonse Esquires, Lord Houghton, Mr. C. H.
Duuley, United States' Consul at Liverpool; Mr. W.
Hepworth Dixon, Mr. G. A. Sala, Mr. Anthony
Trollope, Mr. Andrew Halliday, Mr. H. F. Chorley,
Mr. G. Dalby, and Mr. C. Dickens, jun.
After the usual loyal and patriotic toasts, Mr. P. II Rath-
bone proposed the Right lion. Lord Uufferin, Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster.
The Right Ilon. Lord Dufferin, in reply, said t Mr. Mayor,
ladies. and gentlenon, I &saute you that I feel da..ply
honoured by the great and extreme kindness with which you
have been good enough to receive the toast which has been
proposed to you; and more especially ant I grateful to Mr.
Kathbone for the great honour that lie has done me in
coupling my name with that of her Majesty's Ministers. It
is, indeed, a subject of pride and satisfaction to all English-
imn that those who conduct the affairs of State are always
great Ministers, and something more ; that they are as
eminent in the w dlos of literature as in the fields of debate
and, as it seems to me a law of our political economy that
no party is destined to enjoy an uninterrupted tenure of
office, it is a most convenieot circumstance that their literary
tastes enable those who alternately descend from power to
enjoy the leisure afforded them in such elevated anti agree-
alds, porsuits. I have the homair ti thank you for the kind-
ness with which you have received the health of her Majesty's
alieisters and my own.
The Rev. Dr. Bateson proposed "The Houses of Parlia-
ment," coupling with the It ast the nanie of Lord Houghton.
Lord Romhton, in reepondieg, said Mr. Mayor, ladies,
and gentlemen : M hen I came intii this rum it was is the
belief that l was to return thanks for the House of Lords,
and I am glad that that portion of society has not been ex-
cluded from the arrangements of this magnificent meeting,
because heel that if there is any claim wldch that portion
of society has a right to make upon their fellow citizens, or
their fellow citizens on them, it is that men who have such
huge opportunities of culture and to whom the means and
offices of literature are so well supplied, should not be
-tenting in sympathy npon such an occasion as this.
(Applause.) It is the duty of timt class of soMety to be
represented here at the same time, as we are here as a
confidential party, I may say it has struck the members of
that assembly which I rep, esent with occasional pain and
regret, that amidst the life-like and admirable por-
traitures of the class of society in Mr. Dickens's works,
the members of the House of Lords appear in a alit very
frequent or flattering character. !Laughter and applause.)
It, fact, ladies and gentlemen, I can hardly speak aloud the
designation which Mr. Dickens has bestowed up°. us. (Mr.
Dickens t "Oh, do.") Well, I really cannot. , Laughter. I
do not know—in fact, I will not attempt to interpret the
secret of literature which has not pei nutted this class of
society to appear in a niece agreesble phase. My friend,
Mr. Dickens, has shown little or no interest in the matter of
our political tile. If he had chosen, or perhaps condescended
so far, he might have acceded to the honours of Lord Macau-
lay tool Lord Lytton. tßenewed cheering.) It may sates
somewhat nowt., do to say MIA any one man who has
done muds could have been asked to do anything untre
therefore, I feel that we have here to express but the deepest
gratitude which ,e-e owe to Mr. Dickens. Gratitude is the
genius of this meeting, and to it l give my eetire homage.
.1 tear, hear.)
Tim Mk, or: Gentlemen, the next toast in nib Ist—the toast
of the evening—will be proposed by Lord Dufferin.
Lord Dufferin, who was received with prolonged applause,
then said Mr. Mayor, as you have laid your commands upon
Inc to undertake one of the m st important functions con-
nected with this night's entertainment, I feel, of course, that
no alternative is open to me but implicit obedience to your
commands. lam well aware that there are many, very
many, persons in this room who, from their eminence in
literature, as well as from their natural gifts in eloquence,
are far more fitted than myself to tio honour to your guest—
to express in adequate language the eatimutin in which lie
is held by all chases of his country men, anti, above all things,
to convey to him individually the intense pride and satisfac-
tion with which you, his entertainers, welcome him to your
board to-night. (Applause ) I call upon you to fills bumper
toast to the guest of the evening, Mr. Dickens. ,Applause.)
It has been the privilege of Mr. Dickens's genius not only to
range through all those more obvious fields of literature, of sen-
timent, of passion, which are the :acknowledged domain of the
poet and the metaphysician, but he has been constantly ex-
tending the range of our individual sympathies, and reveal-
ing to us, both in ourselves and in each other, depths of feel-
ing which, but for the htfluence of his art, might long have
slept in barren listlessness within our souls. . Bear, hear.)
I have said that he has quickened the power anti the range
of our natural susceptiltilities, and created freak bonds of
sympathy between ourselves and our fellow-tneu. Now, sir,
I cannot but think that the man who enables sic to Bee stme-
thing more than was before obvious to my dimmer concep-
tion—of that hidden beauty which still lurks about this
world of ours—or who has enabled me to enter more fully
and heartily into communion with the thoughts and feelings
and wishes of my fellow-men—has conferred upon ate a
greater benefit than if he had endowed me with a sixth
sense, or added to the span of my existence. !Loud cheers).
Mr. Mayor, I see that we are tonight honoured with the
presence of ladies, and I will venture to appeal to them, at
all events, in support of the first part of my proposition. If
any single human sentiment may be supposed to be ishOVO the
illustrative art of the poet, or the stimulus of analytical por-
traiture, it would be the love of a mother for her child. But
is there a mother amongst is who will not readily acknow-
ledge that her apreciative affections have been in-
tensified, and that her intuitive insight into her
offsprings' thoughts anti feelings have been rendered
more acute. and that her Why world has been adorned anti
illuminated by the magical charm with which child-life
has been invested in tile stories of "Little Nell," " Young
Dornhey," and "Tiny Tim." (Cheers. Again, ladles and
gentlemen, Mr. Dickens has shown on how the alchemy of
genius can convert the commonest paths of life, the most
conimon-place and vulgar regions of society, into a perfect
kingdom of romance. , Applause.) tnder his large-hearted
leadership we have come to regard the love affairs of Mr.
Swiveller and his Marchioness with greater interest than any
elevated ideals of high life, and to look upon the rued
little
figure of Mr. Pickwick with the same loving reverence which
we are accustomed to bestow noon the most chivalrous
paladin of antiquity. (Applause.) Not only so, but Mr.
Dickens has comerred a still further benefit upon to. Ile
has taught rich anti poor, the educated anti the simple, to
recogoise their coalition humanity not merely by the charac-
teristics of their physical nature, but hy their mutual
susceptibility to those higher and purer influences which
constitute the ptetry of life. (Applause. We are all
ot us, of course, at all times glad to rinde the ac-
quaintance of distinguished persons—from curiositT, from
the profit and amusement to be derived from their con-
versation, from a thounand motives; hut, after perusing
one of Mr. Dickens's volumes, we all of es feel a °tieing for
his personal friendship. (Applause ) lie has to penetrated
our very hearts and our very natures with the inspiration of
his genius, that he has established between its something of
a domestic tie, and we are natutally anxious to grant the
freedom of our hearts to him whit has a ded a tenfold grace
Ii all our social intercourse. ( pplauee , This feeling has
been universal 8,1110111(St Mr. Dickens's team countrymen, NMI
he has been good enough of late to gratify it, at Mileil illeoll-
- to hunself, by Ins public readings is several great
towns of Great Britain and Ireland. But this desire for his
acquaintanceship has not been merely confined to England.
Ile has been compelled to yield to smiler solicitations
addrcased to him from across the Atlantic and this
Suggests to me another consideration which I cannot
help alluding to before I sit down. Of course It is
impossible tai! forecast what may in future be the des-
tinies of the human race, but there are some conies,
lures which may be hazarded without presumption, and
perhaps one of them is, that in God's good Providence it is
intended that a large portion of the habitable gnihe should
pass under the denomination of an English-speaking people.
(Applause.) From this very port there have sidle I forth,
year after year and generation after generation, thousands
upon thousands, to extend the bounds of our empire, to peo-
ple with our colour and kindred another hemisphere. But
what has happened before may happen again. That empire
may suffer disruption. Our children may become our rivals,
and perhaps our enemies ; but whatever may be the convul-
sion which our domittion may he destined to undergo, there
in one empire whith will never suffer disruption ; there is
one allegiance which will never be abjured ; there ia one
despotism which will never {Revoke revolt, and that is the
sway anti the supremacy which Mr. Dickens's writings are
destined to exercise over every English-speaking community,
whether they be inhabitants of an American republic, of an
African or Indian colony, or of a future Australasian empire.
Applause.)
Mr. Dickens, who was received with loud cheers. said Mr.
Mayor, ladies, mil gentlemen, although i have become no
well accustomed of late to the sound of my own votce in this
neighbourhood as to hear it sills protect composure, the or
CS.SiOII is, believe me, very different 11l respect of those
over. helloing voices of yours. As Professor Wilson ones
confided to nie in-Edinburgh that I bad not the least idea,
from h. ating tuna al public, what a magnificent speaker ne
found hinisell lobe when he was quite alone—(laughter)--ao
you call form no conception, f eon, the specimen before you,
of the eloquence with which I shall thank you again and
SOW in some of the innermost moments of my future life.
!Applause., Often and often, then, God willing, my memory
olhi rt c ill this brilliant scene, and will re.illume the ban-
quet hall. I, fa.thmi to this place in its present aspect,
will observe it unuctlp as It Sands—not one man's seat
.nipty, not one woman's fair face absent. while life and
memory &Moe by me (Loud cheers.) Mr. Mayor, Lord
Dufferin in his speech no affectieg to me, so elo-
quently uttered and so rapturously received— cheers,
—made a gracelul anti gracious allusion to the immediate
occasion of my pretent visit to 30ur noble city. It is tot
homage to Liverpool, leased upon a moment's untrustworthy
enthisi tam, but it is the Bodo fact bufft upon t tte rock of ex-
perience, that when I first made up my Mthli, after consider-
able deliberation, systematically to me it my readers in I tree
umbers, face to face, and to try to express myself to theni
through the breath of life, Liverpool ettod foremost
the great places out of London to which I looked a ith eager
Confidence and pleasure. .Cheers.) And why was this?
Sot merely iteeause of the reputation of its citizens for
generous estimation of the arts; not merely because I had
unworthily filled the chair of its great slf-educatittaal
etitutiou long ago ; not merely because the place hail been
a home to me since the welLtemt Mitred day when its
bl,sed roofs alai steeples dipped into the Mersey behind me
on the occasion of my first sailing away to see niy
transoms friends across the Ittlant,c twenty-seven veins

ago (Cheers.) Not or one of those considerations, but
because it had been my happiness to have a public op.
porttuiity if testing the spirit of its peril le I hail asked
Liverpo..l for het o towards the worthy preservation of (lithe'
aptness house. On another occasion I hod ventured to ad-
dress Liverpool in the names ut Leigh Haut and Sheridan
Knowles. On still another occasion I addressed it in the
cause of the brotherhood and sisterhood of letters and the
kindred arts, aul on each awl all the response had been im-
am passiddy spontai.emni, open-handed, Aral munificent.
(Hear, hear.) Mr. Mayor, and ladies aud gentlemen, if I may
venture to take a small illustration of my present position
from my own peculiar craft, I would say that there is this
objection to writing MAIOru to giving • story an auteblogras
Weal form, that through whatever dangers the narrator
may pass, it is clear mit. outlets-1y to the reader beforehand
that he must have come through them somehow else he coal
not have lived to tell the tale. ) A laugh, and cheer.) Now, in
speaking fact, when the fact is associated with such honours
as thee, with which you have enriched me. there is this siu-
gular difficulty in the way of returnieg thanks, that the
speaker must infallibly come back to himself through
whatever oratorical diameters he may languish on the
road. (Laughter.; Let me, then, take the plainer and
sample middle course of dividing my subject equally
between myself and you. Let me assure you that whatever
you have accepted with pleasure, either by word of pen or
by word of mouth, from me, you have greatly imps,ved in
the acceptance. (Cheers). As the gild is said to be doubly
and trebly refined which has seven times pas,eit the furnace,
se • fancy rtl .3, be sabi to become more and more retitled each
time it passes through the human heart. (Hear and cheers(.
You have, aud you knoe you have, brought, to the cons, dela-
tion of are that quality in yourselves without which I should
but have beaten the air. Your earnestness has stimulated
mine, your laughter has made one laugh, and your tears have
overflowed my des. ( applause). All that I can claim for
myself in establishing the relations which exist between us is
constant fidelity to hard work. My literary fellows about me,
of whom I am ao proud to see so matiy—(applauae —know
very well how true it is is all art that what seems th- easiest
dose Is ofteetinies the most difficult to do, and that the small-
est truth may clime if the greatest pains—much as it occurred
to me at Manchester the other day, the seneitive touch of Mr.
Whitworth's mealoiring mfichine conies at last, of Ilesven,
and Ma:wheeler, and its mayor only knows how
much hammerin z. My companions-in-arms know tho-
roughly well, and I think it only right the public should
know too, that in our careful toil and trouble, and in
tine ateady striving fur excellence—eot in any little gifts,
misused by fits and starts— lies our highest duty, at once
to our calling, to one another, to ourselves, and to yea.
Vheerit) Ladies and gentlemen, before sitting down, I
ilnd that I have to clear myself of two very unexpected
accusations. . Laughter.) The tint is a most singular
charge preferred against me by my old friend Lord
Houghton, that I have been somewhat unconscious of
the merits of the House of Lords. (Laughter.) Now,
ladies and geutlemen, seeing that I have hail some few
not altogether °beets° or unknown personal friends in
the assembly, seeing that I bad sonic little association
with, and knowledge of, a certain obscure peer lately
known in England by the mime of Lord Brougnain--
(laughter) —seeing that I regard with some admira-
tion and affection WI other obscure peer wholly unknown
In literary circlet', called Lord Lytton (laughter) --
seeing also that I have had for some years some
slight aomiration of the extraordinary judicial pro-
patties arid amazingly acute mind of a certain Lord Chief
Justice popularly ki.own by the name of Cockhurn—(laughter)
—and also seeing that there is 1.0 wall in EngiAnd WhOM I
respect more in his public capacity, whom I live more in his
private capacity, or from Wilolll i have received more remark-
able proofs of his hmour and love of literature than another
obscure nobleman called Lord Russell—,laughter and ap-
plausel—taking these circumstances into ceusideratlow, I
was rather amazed by my noble friend's accusation. When
I asked him, on his sitting down, what amazing devil ims-
ceased him to make this charge, he replied that he had
never forgotten the days of Lord Verisopht. (Laughter 1
Then, ladies, and geutl. men, I understood it all. Because it
is a remarkahle fact that in the days when that depreciative
and profoundly ummtural character wee invented there was
no Lord Houghton in the noose of Lords—)grcat laughterl—
and there was in the Reuse of Commons a rather indiffer.
lit
meniber called Mmckton %Ines. , Laughter. , Ladies
root gentlemen, to conclude—loud cries of No, no !"
for the presen--(laughter .to conclude, I close with the
other charge of my noble friend, arid here I am more serious,
and 11055 be allowed, perhaps, to expresa any seriousness
lii
half a dozen plain words. Whet. I first took literature
as my profe,sion in Ragland, I calmly resolved within myself
that, whether I succeeded or whether I failed, literature should
he my sole profession. Hear, hear, Rod cheers.) It ap-
peared to me at that time that it was not so well understood
in England as it was in other countries that literature was a
iligeified profession, by which any man might stand or fall.
Casters,) I made a compact with myna( that in my person
literature should stand, and by itself, of itself, and for
itself' and there is no consideration on earth which would
induce me to break that bargain. 'Cheers., Ladies arid
gentlemen, finally allow me to thank you for your great kind-
ness, and for the touching earnestness with which you have
drinik any health I should have thanked you with all ley
heart if it had lit so unfortunately happened that, for many
sufficient reasons', I lost my heart at beta een half-past six
mid half-past seven toditeht. (Mr. Dickena resumed his seat
amidst great cheering )
Mr, J. A. Neon proposed the toast of "Modern Litera-
ture ;" to which Mr. Trollope responded on belialt of '' light
literature," leaving Mr. Hepworth Hilton the more responsi•
tile duty of responding as it regarded literature of a more
serious nature.

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