The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-24 00:00:00

CHARLES DICKENS.

Charles Dickens, the most popular writer of his time,
was born in February, 1812, at Landport, Portsmouth.
His father, the late Mr. John Dickens, in the earlier
part of his life enjoyed a post in the Navy Pay Depart-
ment, the duties of which required that ha should reside
from time to time in different naval stations,—now at
Plymouth, now at Portsmouth, and then at Sheerness
and Chatham. "In the glorious days" of the war with
France, these towns were full of life, bustle, and character ;
and the father of " Boz" was at times fond of dilating
upon the strange scenes he had witnessed. One of his
stories described a sitting-room he once enjoyed at
Blue Town, Sheerness, abutting to the theatre. Of an
evening he used to sit in this room, and could hear what
was passing on the stage, and join in the chorus of
" God save the King," and " Britannia rules the Waves"
—then the favourite songs of Englishmen. The war
being at an end, amongst those who left the public
service with a pension was the father of our novelist.
Coming to London, he subsequently found lucrative
employment for his talents on the press as a reporter of
parliamentary debates. Charles Dickens may, there-
fore, be said to have been in his youth familiarised with
" copy ;" and when his father, with parental anxiety for
his future career, took the preliminary steps for making
his son an attorney, the dreariness of the proposed occupa-
tion fell so heavily upon the mind of the future author,
that he induced his father to permit him to resign the
law and join the parliamentary corps of a daily news-
paper. His first engagement was on the True Sun, an
ultra-Liberal paper, then carrying on a fierce struggle
for existence, from the staff of which he afterwards
passed into the reporting ranks of the Morning Chronicle.
On that paper he obtained reputation as a first-rate man
—his reports being exceedingly rapid, and no less correct.
In the columns of the Chronicle he soon gave proofs of
other talents than those of a reporter, for in the evening
edition of that journal appeared the " Sketches of
English Life and Character," afterwards collected to
form the two well-known volumes of " Sketches
by Boz," published respectively in 1836 and 1837.
The first of these sketches were published in the
Old Monthly Magazine. A passenger by the Britannia
says, "Having crossed the Atlantic in the Britannia
with Mr. Dickens, I recollect a few of his observa-
tions made to me on the passage. I asked him the
origin of the signature Boa.' He said that he had

a little brother, who resembled so much the Moses in
the ' Vicar of Wakefield,' that he used to call him Moses
also ; but a younger girl, who could not then articulate
plainly, was in the habit of calling him Bozie or Boz,
This simple or natural circumstance made him assume
that name in the first article he risked to the public, and
therefore he continued the same, as the first effort was
approved of." The " Sketches by Boz" at once attracted
considerable notice, and obtained great success. Another
publisher came to an arrangement with Mr. Dickens and
Seymour, the comic draughtsman, the one to write and

the other to illustrate a book which should exhibit the
adventures of a party of Cockney sportsmen. Hence
the appearance of " Pickwick," a book which made its
author's reputation and the publisher's fortune. After
the work had commenced poor Seymour committed
suicide, and Mr. Hablot K. Browne was selected to
continue the illustrations, which he did under the sig-
nature of " Phiz.". Meanwhile Mr. Dickens had married

the daughter of Mr. George Hogarth, then—and now—
a musical writer, a man of considerable attainments, and
who, in his earlier days, whilst a writer to the signet in
Edinburgh, enjoyed the intimate friendship of Sir Walter
Scott (whose law agent he was), Jeffrey, and the other
literary notables at that day adorning the Modern
Athens. The great success of " Pickwick" brought
down upon its author demands from all sides for another
work, and " Boz" agreed to write " Nicholas Nickleby,"
to be published in monthly parts. " Nicholas Nickleby,'
was followed by " Oliver Twist," which originally
appeared in Bentley's Miscellany, of which Dickens
undertook the editorship, and which, under his hands,
rose to a large circulation. The publisher entertaining
the opinion usual amongst his class as to the minor
share which the author ought to receive in such
cases, Dickens subsequently gave up his editorship of a
magazine whose chief boast it must ever he that "Boa"
was once its conductor. In " Oliver Twist" Dickens
gave tokens of other talents than that of humour. He
painted scenes of deep pathos, and evinced strong
sympathy for the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed,
and showed the world a literary champion in the field
ready to do battle in the cause of virtue and humanity.
The pen of " Boz," urged by kindly sympathies, has
exposed many a phase of cruelty and wrong, and has
excited the desires of good men to lessen the amount of
evil and suffering existing in society. He has been,
indeed, the author of many social ameliorations and
reforms. Whilst he has amused, he has improved us.
After "Nickleby" came "Master Humphrey's Clock,"
in which Dickens endeavoured to realise a long-cherished
plan of supplying the public with the best writing at
the smallest possible price ; and the new work was
accordingly published in weekly numbers at low cost,
as well as in monthly parts. " Humphrey's Clock" was
the general title of a collection of tales joined by a con-
necting narrative. In the first of the these, called
"The Old Curiosity Shop," Dickens introduced the
character of " Little Nell," perhaps one of the most
perfect he has ever drawn; and the pathos and simplicity
of which has made it a universal favourite. The story
of " Barnaby Rudge" was the second of the same work,
and contains, among other specimens of remarkably
descriptive power, a vivid picture of the Lord George
Gordon riots. In the preface to a new and cheap
edition of " Barnaby Rudge," the author again lets us
have a glimpse of his own life. " The raven (he says)
in this story is a compound of two great originals, of
whom I have been, at different times, the proud pos-
sessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth when
he was discovered in a modest retirement in London,
by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from
the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Ann Page, good

gifts,' which he improved by study and attention in a most
exemplary manner. He slept in a stable—generally on
horseback—and so terri4ed a Newfoundland dog by

his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known,
by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off
unmolested with the dog's dinner, from before his face.
He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when,
in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He
observed the workmen closely, saw that they were
careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess
it. On their going to dinner he ate up all they had left
behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead ; and
this youthful indiscretion terminated in death. While
I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of
mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted
raven at a village public-house, which he prevailed upon
the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent
up to me. The first act of this sage was to administer
to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the
cheese and half-pence he had buried in the garden—a
work of immense labour and research, to which he
devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had
achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition
of stable language, in which he soon became such an
adept, that he would perch outside my window and
drive imaginary horses with great skill all day. Perhaps
even I never saw him at his best, for his former master
sent his duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to
come out very strong, would I be so good as to show
him a drunk-en man'—which I never did, having (un-
fortunately) none but sober people at hand. But I could
hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulat-
ing influence of this sight might have been. He had
not the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return,
or for anybody but the cook, to whom he was attached
—but only, I fear, as a policeman might have been.
Once I met him unexpectedly, about half-a-mile off,
walking down the middle of a public street, attended by
a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the
whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under these
trying circumstances I never can forget, nor the extra-
ordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought
home, he defended himself behind a pump, until over-
powered by numbers. It may have been that he was
too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been
that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and
thence into his maw—which is not improbable, seeing
that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden wall
by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of
glass by scraping away the putty all around the frames,
and tore up, and swallowed in splinters, the greater part
of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing—but,
after some three years, he, too, was taken ill and died
before the kitchen fire. He kept hi: eyes to the last
upon the ineat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on
his back with a sepulchral cry of Cuckoo !' Since then
I have been ravenless." On the completion of " Hum-
phrey's Clock," Dickens set sail for America, where he
accumulated materials for his " American Notes for
General Circulation," published on his return in 1842.
In the course of the year 1843 he commenced his
"Martin Chuzzlewit," which appeared, like his earlier
works, in monthly parts. I' the middle of 1844 he
went to Italy, where he spent about a year. In 1845
he propdsed to found a new morning newspaper, the
Daily News, of which he was to be the editor. He
organised a large literary 'staff, and surrounded himself
with the most popular writers of the day. Money was
abundant, the project was warmly applauded, and on
the 21st of January, 1846, the first number of the new

jsokuertenha elappeared.entitled
"Picture i
et u
rietf Dickensito y commencedElpec h
Expectation
a t
ioins
had 1;)CC11 Lizbi; excited, that when the first
number appeared—(though probably full fifty times
as good as any first number of a daily newspaper
that ever before appeared 7mA ec.4IAW its 'very
first infancy it did not utterly eclipse its rivals that
has been organised for half-a-century—many people
professed to be disappointed. This public disregard for
the new journal, and the constant heavy labour of
editing a morning newspaper, combined, probably, to
induce Dickens to withdraw from so troublesome a task.
Since then he has delighted the world in his own peculiar
fashion with his " Dombey and Son," " David Copper-
field," "Bleak House," " Hard Times," and "Little
Dorrit ;" has written several Christmas liuoks,' and
established the Weekly paper called goliseholcf Words,
to which he and other writers attracted a host of sup-

porters, numbering, it is understood, somewhere abou
sixty thousand per week—this, however, has been given
up, and a similar publication, entitled All the Year
Round, has been substituted for it, on which, it is under-
stood, much the same literary staff is engaged. Mr.
Dickens was one of the founders of the Guild of Litera-
ture and Art; if, indeed, a project which has failed so
unequivocally can be said to have been founded at all.
Fully recognising the benevolent intentions of the pro-
moters, we must be content to take little more than the
will fur the deed. A portrait of Charles Dickens will
appear in the Weekly Times of Saturday next.