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

JANUARY 3, 1854.

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, 1833,
they adopted the outline of a comprehensive scheme
for the formation of a new institute, and since that time
they have been actively engaged in devising and ma-
turing the means for the accomplishment of their design.
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 a gallery of art. 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 develope 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 have 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 elocutiopary-
skill. His manner also is perfectly self-possessed and
unembarrassed. Practice in amateur theatricals enables
him to introduce into dialogues andirconversations 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 advantages 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 fromhis 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 the 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 artisans of Birmingham. The object which
had induced him to come among them had already opened
their hearts to him, but the following observations, with
which he prefaced his reading, confirmed him in their
favour :

" My good friends," he said, " when I first imparted
to the committee of the projected institute my particu-
lar wish that on one of the evenings of my readings here
the main body of my audience should be composed of
working men and their families, I was animated by two
desires--first, by the wish to have the great pleasure of
meeting you face to face at this Christmas time and ac-
company you myself through one of my little Christmas
books—(cheers)—and, second, by the wish to have an
opportunity of stating publicly, in your presence and in
the presence of the committee, my earnest hope that the
institute will from the beginning recognise one great
principle, strong in reason and justice, which I believe
to be essential to the very life of such an institution. It
is, that the working man shall, from the first unto the
last, have a share in the management of an institution
which is designed for his benefit, and which calls itself
by his name. (Cheers.) I have no fear here of being
misunderstood—of being supposed to mean too much in
this. If there ever was a time when any one class could
of itself do much for its own good and for the welfare of
society, which I greatly doubt, that time is unquestion-
ably past. It is in the fusion of different classes, with-
out confusion ; in the bringing together of employers and
employed ; in the creating of a better common under- k
standing among those whose interests are identical, who
depend upon each other, who are vitally essential to
each other, and who never can be in unnatural anta-
gonism without deplorable results, that one of the
chief principles of a mechanics' institution should con-
sist. In this world a great deal of the bitterness among
us arises from an imperfect understanding of one an-
other. (Cheers.) Erect in Birmingham a great educa-
tional institution—properly educational—educational of
the feelings as well as of the reason—to which all orders
of Birmingham men contribute, in which all orders of
Birmingham men are faithfully represented, and you
will erect a temple of concord here which will be a model
edificeto the whole of England. Contemplating as Ido
the existence of the Artisans' Committee, which not long
ago considered the establishment of the institute so sen-
sibly and supported it so heartily, I earnestly entreat
the gentlemen—earnest I know in the good work, and
who are now among us—by all means to avoid the great
shortcoming of similar institutions ; and, in asking the
working man for his confidence, to set him the example,
and give him theirs in return. (Great cheering.) You
will judge for yourselves if I promise too much for the
working man when I say, that he will stand by such an
enterprise with the utmost of his patience, his persever-
e ance, sense, and spirit ; that I am sure he will need no

[PRICE SD•

charitable aid or condescending patronage ; but will
readily and, cheerfully pay for the advantages which it
confers ; that he will prepare himself in individual cases
where he feels that the adverse circumstances around
him have rendered it necessary ; in a word, that he will
feel his responsibility like an honest man, and will most
honestly and manfully discharge it. (Great cheering.)
I now proceed," he concluded, "to the pleasant task,
to which, I assure you, I have looked forward for a
long time."
And a pleasant task it was, certainly—pleasantly dis-
charged, and most agreeably accepted. The audience
never wandered for a moment. The reader, in return,
took care not to tax their attention too much. There
are many things in the most interesting books intended
for quiet perusal which would fatigue a large assemblage
of listeners. Even the Carol can afford some omissions
in this respect, and in the Cricket on the Hearth there is
still more room for judicious curtailment. Mr. Dickens
managed this admirably, and it was curious to observe
nearly under the pressure of a public ordeal, he had
lopped cif everything to which the knife of the critic
would have been applied. His tendency to exaggera-
tion and overcolouring became subdued, and the truth-
fulness of his delineations, thus sobered down, grew
more strikingly powerful. It may he remarked, there-
fore, as one feature of such readings, that their influence,
even where the audience is comparatively illiterate, is
in a healthy directien upon the mind .of the author,
whose perceptions are always more or less liable to be
warped by the partiality of his own coterie. By a dex-
terous use of that humour which with Dickens is never
out of place, and often adds point to the profoundest
pathos, he has hit upon an intelligible resting-place be-
tween this world and the world of shadows, to which
the hardest headed mechanic in Birmingham can unhe-
sitatingly follow his flight. They all did so the other
night, and not one among them but accompanied the
three spirits of Christmas back into their own youthful
days, then through their present, and then forward to-
wards the dark and'inYSterious future. "It is a-fair;
even-handed, noble adjustment of thing-s," says the
author of the Carol, "that while there is infection in
disease and sorrow there is nothing in the world so
irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour."