The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

MR. CHARLES DICKENS AT BIRMINGHAM.

The good people of Birmingham may well congratu-
themselves on the manner in which they have been
spending the Christmas week. While the inhabitants
of our other large towns have been contenting them-
selves with pantomimes and the other usual amusements
of the season, it has been their good fortune and privi-
lege to be gathered together like one great family into
their fine hall, listening to the most admired fiction-
writer of his time, who had come down among them on
a mission of most seasonable good will and benevolence.
In times past several attempts have been made at Bir-
mingham to establish good and useful mechanics' or
literary institutions. To a community of the kind ready
and convenient means for conveying instruction to the
adult population formed an object of very great import-
ance. The efforts, however, which at different periods
have been made in that direction have all, sooner or
later, ended in failure ; and now that the question of
education is engaging such serious attention, especially
in the manufacturing districts, when from day to day
the impression gathers strength that the position which
we have acquired by our material resources and our in-
dustry can only be secured to us by superior intelli-
gence, the people of Birmingham are wisely alive to their
wants in that respect. On the 10th of January, 1853,
they adopted the outline of a comprehensive scheme
for the formation of a new institute, and since that time
'-ave engaged in devising and ma-
turing the means for tne '' '
It is one of a very extensive character, involving a large
preliminary outlay, and presenting difficulties which
those who are conversant with the nature of such under-
takings will be at no loss to understand. The present
idea is that the institute should comprehend two depart.
ments ; the first special in its character, and confined to
schools of industrial science ; the other general, and em-
bracing libraries, reading-rooms, lectures, museums,
mining records, meetings for the discussion of original
communications, accommodation for the literary societies
of the town, and agallerfof att. It Is proposed to secure
the permanence of the institute by vesting the property
in the Corporation of Birmingham as trustees, and the
necessary buildings are not to be commenced until the
amount which is required for their completion, and
which is estimated at 20,0001., has been obtained. To
collect such a sum as this by voluntary contributions,
even in the manufacturing capital of the midland coun-
ties, is a matter of no ordinary difficulty ; but it shows
how earnest the inhabitants are in a cause which all must
applaud, and it proves that the memorable lesson which
the Great Exhibition of 1851 taught the productive
classes of this country has not been forgotten.
But the interest felt in undertakings of this descrip-
tion in a country so full of public spirit as ours is
never entirely local, and aid comes to them not unfre-
quently from distant and unexpected sources. It may
seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, that the
best friend which the new Birmingham Institute
has yet found is Mr. Charles Dickens. Actuated, pro-
bably, by no other motive than that deep sympathy
which breathes through his works for the humbler
classes, he has collected and placed at the disposal of the
committee a larger sum than any other subscriber. On
the evenings of Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday last he
presented himself to the inhabitants of Birmingham, in
their town-hall, and, to their great gratification, read his
"Christmas Carol" and his "Cricket on the Hearth."
The former, selected for Tuesday, was repeated on Fri-
day, and on both occasions, but especially the last, was
received with unbounded admiration. The latter did not
tell so strongly, but was nevertheless very favourably
received. During the three nights of his appearance,
6,000 people attended, and the spacious hall, which on
the first two nights was filled with the wealthier classes,
was on the third almost exclusively reserved for the ope-
ratives and their families. It is an unprecedented thing
now-a-days to hear authors reading their own works in
public. The simple fashion of bardic times is past, and
the fastidiousness of modern ideas finds or fancies some-
thing egotistical in such displays. It is within the nar-
row circle of private life that the man of literary genius
has alone been considered privileged to develops his own
conceptions of what he has written. The multiplication
of books seems to remove him further and further from
personal observation, and we neglect to gratify while
yet we may that natural curiosity which, when the ob-
ject has gone, gives a charm to the reminiscences of
friendship and inspires many of the most ingenious specu-
lations of commentators and critics. The appearance of
Mr. Dickens at Birmingham is a return to the practice of
the olden time, while the benevolent object in view is a
complete answer to any insinuation of vanity. Indeed,
the writer who encounters a large and intelligent audi-
ence with a work of fiction, originally intended for quiet
perusal in the closet, braves an ordeal which, unless
supported by the highest merit, would soon take the
self-complacency out of him. There is probably no au-
thor in this country, except Mr. Dickens himself, who
would have ventured to do so. The keen perception of
character, the genial spirit, the vivid word-painting, the
minuteness of observation, reminding one of the style of
the Dutch masters ; above all, the irresistible and origi-
nal powers of humour and pathos, developed in works
which deal principally with society among the middle
and humbler classes, while they ha%e achieved for him
immense popularity, are possessed in the same measure
by none of his contemporaries. To these characteristics
of his genius he adds an excellent voice, distinct, well-
toned, audible to a very large assembly without apparent'
effort, and which he modulates with much elocutionary
skill. His manner also is perfectly self-possessed and
unembarrassed. Practice in amateur theatricals enables
him to introduce into dialogues and conversations espe-
cially a judicious and enlivening amount of dramatic
effect, but this he has the good taste not to carry too
far, nor in the actor to sink the individuality of the au-
thor. Bringing these personal aclvantages to bear upon
such a work as the Christmas Carol, is it wonderful that
Mr. Dickens should have achieved a triumphant success
in the benevolent objects which took him to Birming-
ham ? He has not left an unconverted " Scrooge" in
the great hardware metropolis ; he has added some
3001. or 4001. to the fund for the new institute, and
he has filled the minds and hearts of the working
classes especially with an appreciation of his talents
which they never could have gathered from his writ-
ings. Among the multitude of readers, how few are
gifted with that fine discernment which determines the
just value of literary merit ; overlooks no beauty, how-
ever modestly withdrawn, and no defect, however art-
fully concealed ! But, though only one man in a thou-
sand may be able unaided to extract from a book its true
significance, let the author be a good elocutionist and
consent to fill the office of reader, and the whole rise at
once by an easy effort to the level of intelligent apprecia-
tion. So it was on the occasions to which we are refer-
ring, but most so on the Friday evening, when Mr.
Dickens entertained the working men and their families.
All the large establishments of Birmingham were well
represented there, and it was indeed a spectacle of some
novelty, and not devoid of high interest, to see nearly
2,000 people, whose lives are one long round of material
toil, resigning themselves during hours that never sped
more swiftly to the pleasures of the imagination and the
present influence of genius. They formed an eagerly
attentive and delighted audience, catching up with their
applause every stroke of humour, and melting at each
touch of pathos, sensitive to all the changing emotions
which it is the object of fiction to evoke, and yielding a
ready homage to that magic power which, by the bonds
of sympathy, " makes tne whole world kin." It is in
the midst of such assemblages that we perceive the value
to authors, as to every one else, of that genial and kindly
spirit which old Jacob Marley would not permit to go
forth in life, and which condemned him to wander

through the world after death, dragging after him his
chain of cashboxes. Dickens, at least, possesses that
spirit, or he would not have been listened to so delight-
edly by the artiersnaot, Birmingham. The object which
had induced hitTrAmie among them had already opened
their hearts to hiiirbut the following observations, with,
which he prefaced his reading, confirmed him in their
favour :